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Unless you buy a cheap brand I don't think the matte / glossy holds up anymore. A good quality screen can have a degree of gloss and still offer superior quality to matte. Crystal clear rendering of fonts is a given. Having said the above, I think there's actually very little competition out there that beats MacBook Pro's etc.

It doesn't hold true for me personnally. I have a true matte screen laptop, and its color absolutely suck (they look like a t-shirt that went in the washing machine way too many times), but it has absolutely no glaring whatsoever and it feels a lot more comfortable.

Same way e-ink is much much more pleasant to read a book in the sun than even the most expansive amoled screen.

I have a MBP, and often end up working in the dark or turning my screen brightness way up just to fight the glare. That said, the only thing matte gives you is diffusion of light, and often at the cost of actually being brighter (but again, more diffuse) than the glossy. Personally, I still prefer matte.

Is it possibly very bright where you sit? Blinds may make your life a lot more pleasant.

I love my Bose QC 35! The problem lately is I can't find any current music that is appealing to me. Alas, I must be getting old.

What do you mean by current music? I have absolutely no idea what kind of garbage is pushed on teenagers these days but a lot of new music is produced.

Anything after '73 is highly suspicious to me

I'd be thrilled to spend $1,000 on any of these if I knew for sure they'd work, but the Expected Value of a tool (or any other investment) falls very fast when I consider how little hard evidence I have to go on /for my particular context/.

For books, the dollar cost is so low that I can buy it, invest 15 minutes in evaluating it, and not feel bad walking away. At least 25% of books are worth the time and cost, which is plenty.

One of the upsides of living in the EU: As a consumer you can, by law, return any* online purchase for 14 days after delivery for a full refund and for any reason. It's pretty great.

*exemptions include event tickets and clearly personalized items

I absolutely understand, which is also why I waited way too long to buy them.

Which one do you doubt and what are your questions ? I would be happy to provide more about my experience so you can decide if it matches your need.

Thanks a million! IDE: How do you estimate which one is going to be best /after/ you invest in the training? I have been really trying to get better at emacs, for example, but it still feels clunky a lot of the time so I only use it for org-mode. I also switched to VS Code and honestly don't see what the hype is about - but does that mean I just need more training? From who? ("If brute force isn't working, use more of it!")

Hardware: I bought a gamer laptop (for use with Ubuntu) recently because it had a GPU, but was shocked to discover that I never got used to the keyboard. Again, I thought that I would get better, but it really hasn't. Fortunately, my Kenesis keyboard /was/ something with a continuously rising learning curve (I'm not hopeless, contra the evidence above!) But now I'm doing a lot of work in Looker which tries to do extraordinary things in the browser, but brings my machine to a crawl. My Mac-using coworker says it's less of an issue for him, but I can't quite bear to drop $2k just for that one application. That said, the value-of-my-time-over-1y calculation suggests I should. But does "good computer" just mean a Mac?

Monitor: What would be a good monitor buying guide? I'm happy with mine now but don't know what any of the specs mean for the future

Chair: This is like the definition of "YMMV" but how would you go about evaluating chairs, esp in the covid era?

Standing desk: I've been procrastinating on this one because while I understand how to measure things, I foresee myself visiting a half dozen diffent sites with different ways of representing the size/specs of their desks and getting pretty overwhelmed. And that would be the hardest thing to return.

Quality noise cancelling headphones: OK I guess I have no excuse here.

Thanks again, you've already forced me to think through several mental blocks and realize they are real but entirely surmountable. Any answers (from anyone) to the questions above would also be appreciated!

Not OP but:

IDE: Use IntelliJ Community Edition (or whatever Jetbrains IDE matches your project). Print out a keystrokes cheat sheet and tape it on your desk. Try to do stuff as a series of snippets, autocorrects, autocompletes and refactorings rather than pounding out the code (this is especially relevant in Java where it can save you like 90% keystrokes).

Example: don't start a new method by writing the new method. Start it by calling it somewhere with arguments, then alt-enter (auto-correct) to create the method, with the types and arguments already filled in.

Chair: get Herman Miller Aeron or Mirra (cheaper), second hand

Standing desk: I use cardboard boxes on a regular desk. I take sitting breaks when I'm thinking but not actively typing. Pomodoros also work (stand 20, sit 5 or 10). Don't use your phone when you sit.

I could add from my experience.

> IDE: How do you estimate which one is going to be best /after/ you invest in the training?

I had put off using a paid IDE for years. However the recommendation for IDEA tools kept growing stronger among my network. So I just took the plunge with their JetBrains (for Java). And what worked for me was I was full on using their IDE. Including running the app/web-server from within IDE. The great thing is they have 30 day trial period and so I learned most of the right way of using it. i.e., keyboard short cuts, navigation etc., Towards the end of the trial period I could sense a clear increase in my productivity. From then on buying full version was easy decision.

With their DataGrip product it was something similar. Good thing is their trial version allows 30 minute sessions. I kept on using it for a month or so until I was annoyed with repeated restarts so bought their full suite of products (the difference between two tools and full suite is something like ~10$/month).

> Laptop. MacBook's keyboard + Trackpad has been a game changer for me. Especially the trackpad. It's incredibly easy for me to navigate using trackpad. From exclusively Linux for ~12 years I've gone full on Apple ecosystem over last 3 years. Now not just Laptop I can also vouch for their bluetooth keyboard, trackpad and iPhone-11, and AirPods Pro.

If you're in EU, every single one of these you can try for 14 days with no engagement, often 30 days if bought on amazon.

> IDE

This one I probably can't answer you because of how personnal it is. My two best advices are:

- if there is a paying tool where you thought "yes it's cool but I don't really need that I can do without", don't do that and buy it. You will feel a lot better buying a tool that you ultimately don't need much than discovering after 10 years that you were wasting your time that a 100e spend could save you

- try a tool that is diametrically opposed to what you are used to, and force yourself to use it for a while no matter what, see if that different way of thinking works better if or if your original choice works better

Eg if you're a vim guy, don't try emacs or vs code (small steps); but intellij or similar, discover an entirely opposite way of doing things. It may convert you, or you may learn that you were right in your choice. Mostly all such tools have a free trial time. Hard part is to force yourself to use the new tool no matter what for a while.

My eye opener was debugging a hard problem in PHPStorm and noticing that instead of fighting/trying to extract information from its debugger, I was helped and supported by it. Suddenly that tool became my assistant and I couldn't do without, and I have been subscribed to jetbrains ever since (their intellisense is also miles ahead but I don't know if that alone would have converted me)

> I bought a gamer laptop

Ah, I have one too ! Love it ! Used to be Asus ROG serie, now is MSI G-serie. Awesome thing. The keyboard is the worst thing ever made for coding (especially on msi, they're steelseries keyboard, re-arranged for gaming).

I don't know your personnal situation, but if you can afford it and assuming you are a coder, buy a dedicated work laptop. Only thing that matters are screen and keyboard. Lenovo Thinkpad, Dell XPS, that kind of thing. Price in the 1000-2000 range usually. Not having anything but work on it will end up as a bonus and net positive, I promise you that (no distraction).

My current laptop is a thinkpad matte screen with semi mechanical key, if I need to show it to someone it looks terrible (and right out of the 60s), but it's awesome. If you spend more than 5 minutes a week fighting against your keyboard, you need to change it. If you need to "change position" because of the glare, change.

> Monitor

High refresh rate (120/144/240 hz, look for gamers latop they care about that), good color rendering (eg look for srgb screen) and contrast. In this one, opposite the laptop one, gamer's things are actually pretty good because rendering fast and clearly matters a lot there. The contrast is important because you want something that you can see clearly without being at 100% brightness, so the gamers 120hz/hdr compatible screen are a welcomed thing.

Do not think 60hz/75hz is enough, you won't see the difference going up but going down after being used to it makes it clear how better it is. This is a ~300e spend max.

> Chair

The rules are: it should not be an effort to be sitting in a good posture in it, and it should be your natural posture in it. If you don't sit better on it "unless I force myself to sit that way", forget it you won't do it. I bought a "medical/ergonomical" chair meant for people with back problems, for 240e.

> Standing desk

Absolutely agree, I bought one from autonomous during a sale. One thing I can tell you is it's a lie to thing standing is always better, so I would really suggest a switching that can do both. I'm still not sure it makes my life better per se, but I know at least I'm not sitting all day anymore and I don't feel terrible working standing up which is what I scared of.

> Quality noise cancelling headphones

Of the entire list this is probably the first one you should go for (if you can, eg don't need to answer your colleagues every 5 minutes). You will be very surprised by how much many distraction you didn't notice it removes and how much more centrated you become when it's only you, the screen, your mind and maybe some music.

This reminds me of a study I heard about some time back, comparing the highest performers in various trades to the average. Apparently one major predictor is that outlier performers spend more, even as a percentage of income, on their tools.

But don’t let this be an excuse to fall for the toolbox fallacy!

I assume you mean "a poor craftsman blames his tools".

Is there actually any evidence that over-focusing on tools is a common problem? I understand it could be, and we've all probably wasted an hour here and there, but I don't fear drowning in a glass of water just because I've swallowed wrong a few times

I was curious enough to look it up, apparently it's the fallacy of "I can't properly start until I have <tool X>". In that sense I think it's not at all a problem among professionals, but perhaps an easy stumbling block that discourages a lot of amateurs (the study I heard about was actual trades, where going from amateur to professional is less of a hurdle than among creative pursuits).

I might say, "A journeyman makes his tools do the job, a master invests in his tools".

Try soldering without flux and tell me tools don't matter ;/

+1 on the IDE front. I used to do everything on vim and will always find silly errors that an IDE would have found immediately. I switched to rubymine and not only me but everyone on my team appreciates it!

I am glad switching to an IDE worked for you, but for me a well extended and configured Vim setup is the best IDE on earth. Anything an IDE can do, Vim can typically do as well given the right plugin.

The general point was not "use this", but "make sure you check all sides of the dice to find which one is actually the best suited for you".

All good points, but chiming in that I'm actually going the opposite direction on VSCode. I've used VS Professional for 70% of my dev up until recently, but more and more and finding I can do the same things "lighter" with VSCode+appropriate extensions.

Agreed and when I open intellij, it's clear mentally that I'm "working", while ss code makes me mentally feel like "I'm just doing a quick edit", even after 5 hours of coding. It's juste the perfect amount of lightweight but with just all the features I need to be productive.

But at the end of the day there are always those 10+ people projects, or hard debugging case, where a heavy computing-intensive IDE figguring stuff out for you is worth every cent.

Anyway my general point is make sure your tool suits you, if you spend more than 5 minutes fighting against it every day it doesn't, you either need training on it or to change it.

My anecdote for a good IDE license. The JetBrains Go IDE Goland was well prepared for the ~Go 1.13 switch to using Go modules. Everyone on our team that was using VS Code lost a day of work retooling their env. A few of of them converted even.

I think standing desks are a waste of money. setting a timer to get up and stretch your legs every half an hour to hour is the best thing you do. I completely agree on buying a great chair though.

Your list is on point.

I'll admit that I haven't any experience with other brands, but the Bose QC35 IIs changed my work life (especially when I as working in the office).

I really should upgrade my chair and desk.

Love the headphones but the ear pads wear out every 3-6 months

Nice! I was looking for an advice like that one. I am working on a Notebook where the screen is too bright and it's really uncomfortable to work sometimes.