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Comment by feral | Hacker News Reader

A lot of those workspaces consist of a laptop (often 13inch macbook) on a desk.

Laptop screens, on desks, are at the wrong height for ergonomics - you shouldnt have to look down at the screen all day.

People should be using large dedicated monitors, which are at the right height, and dedicated input peripherals (e.g. keyboard+mouse). Ergonomic, and efficient.

A nice 27inch IPS display is now very cheap; I do not understand professional hackers working just off a laptop.

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Yeah, I only took Hanselman seriously: http://coderwall.com/p/fgtlba

No pointing showing me a IKEA table, a fern and an MBA.

But why does he have an HDTV for Netflix at his workstation? It does seem to be the best setup for working before that's mentioned, and afterword it looks a lot like goof-off central.

Sometimes you need a swap that mental context out for a while and then revisit it, especially when you get stuck. Netflix would be a good match for this, even if it's something semi-relevant like TED talks.

Ya, it's also good for LiveMeetings that I'm not really listening to.

Also, I personally work better when I can give a bit of my brain something else to think about so it shuts up and I can get real work done. That's why I listen to music; and, that's why during my late nights in grad school, I played a movie over and over again in the background. "How to Train Your Dragon" was the preferred feature, by the way.

I typically used "Wizard People, Dear Reader" for this task.

There's three monitors facing me, and the HDTV is the fourth (off to the right, you can't see it). Attached to it is a Cisco Umi (for 1080p telepresence with the home office) and an Xbox. Neither are on all the time. When I'm totally stressed or can't fix a problem I will either A) call someone and pair or 2) watch something on NetFlix or do a level of Just Cause 2. At that point my subconscious has usually dislodged the issue.

This is pretty identical to mine, so I have a natural bias towards this (and the only one I took seriously). There's something to be said for simplicity, but too simple is just not realistic. For example, in the first picture, it's just a laptop on a table. No pen, no paper, no earphones, no mouse (!). There isn't even a power cable. I know it's to make it look clean, but like I said - not realistic.

Agreed. The rest look mostly like non-square Instagram photos.

That being said, I still prefer working of single machine, with virtualization. A complete take-away. Dropbox still hasn't stopped public sharing, so http://bit.ly/NtMjGd.

I have 2 Dell 24 inchers side by side with blazing fast Ivy Bridge rig that most gamers would envy (I'm not a gamer though, I just like a V12 under the hood). I think this is the most optimal set up for a programmer. With 2 x 27 inch there would be a little bit too much head turning, same goes for 3 any size displays. In my opinion 2 displays is a must for a web developer, since there's always a browser on one display and a code editor on the other.

Same here. I've been using two 24" monitors for ages and it's always a bit annoying to do something with my laptop.

How do you setup them? I suppose you have a primary one facing you like if it was a single monitor?

No, they're a bit away from my position and equally placed to left and right.

I have the twin Dell 24's with an MBP -- here's an image how I have it setup: http://briandear.tumblr.com/post/24403674220/my-development-...

Maybe not the "best" way, but perfect for my workflow (I deal with mobile web development so I need a bunch of small browser windows open simultaneously to test on the multitude of mobile user agents.) I usually have specs, chrome, campfire, email on the left, code in the center and my development browser windows on the right.

I do not understand professional hackers working just off a laptop.

Ability to take my work wherever I want with absolutely zero context switch.

Sad but true.

State retention/replication is among the biggest hassles of my multiple computing environments.

OTOH, it's also a pretty persuasive argument to leave work at work at the end of the day.

ssh dev

tmux attach

workon project

We don't all work solely in the command line which makes the advice worthless.

Only some people work solely in the command line, therefore that advice is worthless? I don't follow your logic here.

My shell work isn't the issue. Or rather in isolation it's not. I'll run upwards of 40-50 shell sessions (on multiple hosts, with screen sessions on many of them). The net state of all of those sessions, including spatial relations between shells and color coordination (helpful for state recognition) is the hard thing to replace. Note: it's not that I carefully choose the colors of all shells, but I do have a couple of scripts that will kick out terminals in either lighter or darker shades (lighter == remote terminals, darker == local) to indicate stuff whose state I want to specifically register.

Full desktop sessions and browser state are the big ones.

I might be able to look at NX or another remote desktop solution, but those would be at best poor substitutes.

Depends on the work, but I've found that all my dotfiles (including .ssh and .screenrc and .vimrc) linked into a directory on Dropbox, as well as my Development directory (containing all my local copies of git repos) goes a long way toward achieving this.

I _really_ didn't want to build a computer, and the iMac is _substantially_ faster than the equivalent-costing MBP (and also frees me up to travel with an Air).

It's a useful tradeoff, I think.

Dropbox probably does take care of the biggest issues. But I really do mean absolutely zero. The reason I quit using an external monitor is that I'd organize my windows differently on it and then have trouble readjusting to the laptop. Especially when lines of code started wrapping that didn't wrap when I wrote them!

I actually started writing shorter lines of code once I got my large external monitor. I've found it's really convenient to set my editor to take up 50% of the screen vertically and have either a command line or browser on the other half of the screen (and reference windows on the laptop screen). In this setup, the editor is actually slightly narrower and taller than when full-screen on my laptop.

Switching between screen sizes really made me realize the importance of making sure all my code breaks at column 80, which makes it easier to read in terminals, on other people's screens, etc. as well. Good practice, I think.

I try to avoid line wrapping, but SQL statements usually force me to have some >80 char lines.

I used to have a problem with readjusting window sizes and positions between the laptop and my 24" display until I discovered full-screen apps in the recent OS X. Now I just run the text editor full-scren on both

I also hated to have all my windows flying around when I would (un)plug my MacBook Pro from external devices... Some time ago I discovered Stay (http://cordlessdog.com/stay/) and now I have no more problems with that. It is great, you can define position of windows for all your different setups (profiles). In my case I mostly have two setups, at office (where I work most of my time) I plug my MacBook Pro to an external display and when I am at home I work directly on the MacBook and sometimes I connect it to another external display.

I am a big fan of being able to just work whenever I want on my computer... but I also am extremely big fan of plugging it to external displays and use ergonomic devices, and I try to use them as much as I can. At my office I use a Kinesis Freestyle and a trackball, and am very happy since I started using it. We spend so much time in these "positions" that we should minimize possibilities of having problems and be confortable... at the end we want to keep doing this for long time ;)

I use a 15.6" laptop on a stand, with the top of the screen right at eye height. It works great, and has the advantage of not forcing me to recalibrate my eyes and view distance every time I go home.

But yes, staring down at the thing would be awful.

Do you have a recommendation for a nice cheap IPS? I'm in the market for a monitor, I'd be interested to see what other developers recommend.

RPS had a nice write up in Feb.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/02/22/hard-choices-the-...

Dell U2711 is quite nice, good IPS and anti-glare, but it's not cheap (800-1000 USD). But in my case I consider that money well spent.

At a recent Slashdot discussion a lot of people mentioned Yamasaki Catleap, it could be shipped from Korea where it's supposedly produced from 27'' panels rejected by Apple, but still usable. And it costs 340-400 USD with shipping.

As for the topic, it's really puzzling how people can use just laptops as their main work machines for code development. Right now I have about 6Mpixels at 100dpi of screen estate and I guess I could make use of another 4Mpixels. Good keyboard is also a must.

I have a HP ZR24w that I've been super-happy with. I had some trouble with the stand and HP overnighted me a new one for free.

I recall it getting good reviews on AnandTech although I can't seem to find the link now.

I have an HP zr2740w (27", 2560x1440), just under $700. Nice screen, but it's pretty bare-bones. No HDMI or analog inputs (just displayport and DVI-D); no OSD (seriously - none!) and a pretty cheap stand. Overall, the extras in the Dell are probably worth the additional cost.

If you want really cheap, LG has some 23" (1920x1080) IPS panels for right around $200.

The Dell Ultrasharps are a great value for the price. I picked up a refurb 24" for around $350 a few years ago, and it's served me very well.

I'd say Dell Ultrasharp U2412M 24 inch IPS Widescreen LED Monitor 1920x1200 is the best for the money at the moment. Goes for $315 on amazon at the moment. Of course there are more expensive alternatives out there, not knowing your budget it's difficult to advise. I would definitely go for a higher rez though if the pocket allows.

Indeed, the Ultrasharps are pretty much unbeatable for the money. The 2312 and 2412 are especially attractive for the price and quality...

NEC EA231WMi on ccfl, or its successor on LEDs. It is even cheaper than Dell 24" but for a reson - it is 23" 16:9. But it has comparable quality and being 25% cheaper I bought it.

I recommend the Catleap monitors, ~$310 shipped from Korea, same LG IPS screens as in 27" Apple Studio monitors.

Have been using mine with a MBA at home, love it.

I'm currently experimenting with a 6 x 24'' setup. I used to have just 3 which fits most of my needs but I always wanted to try have it felt with even more.

I does require some odd head movement once in a while though

My back hurts just to look at those "notebook workspaces" :( . I've worked on 10" netbook 6 hours a day for a year, on 15" notebook for two years. It is just soo bad for eyes, hands, back. Ugh...

Not to mention that 22-24" is perfectly fine, especially in a hackerspace that would otherwise cheap out by supplying only bad chairs and card tables.

Two 22-24" are actually more flexible than a single 27", and the price is about the same...

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