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Comment by tkrajcar | Hacker News Reader

I use screen regularly, but mostly to be able to attach and detach to sessions as I move between work, home, etc.

tmux users frequently tout its ability to do nifty split screens and other window management, but I'm not sure I understand the value of doing this over just starting another iterm2 window/tab and using regular window management tools. Cmd-tilde or Cmd-tab is one less key than Ctrl-a, h.... :) What am I missing?

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If you do dev work on a remote server this is usually not an option unless you're willing to open half a dozen ssh connections, but then none can communicate with each other easily..

I'm sure iterm2 does a fantastic job doing window/tab management, but I spent almost 5 years working over ssh.

edit - tmux is scriptable too, so you can setup a dev environment using a shell script (I do this, setting up my rails server, console, resque workers, etc, etc).

Additionally, iTerm2 supports splitting windows vertically and horizontally, with niceties like dimming inactive panes. However, not all terminal applications support this. When I move from my laptop to a public computer to my iPad I appreciate a consistent experience. If you don't use split windows in the first place then tmux's functionality won't thrill you, but as someone who logs into my dev machine from multiple locations I prefer to rely on the actual terminal application and host operating system as little as possible for window management.

Good news for iTerm2/tmux users: the next version of iTerm2 (according to the author) has deep tmux integration: http://groups.google.com/group/iterm2-discuss/browse_thread/...

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