Comment by aenis | Hacker News Reader

Comment by aenis | Hacker News Reader

I was wondering about this for a while now.

My main home office has 5 monitors, and i still have to swipe between desktops regularly. I used to have 6, but two ultrawides stacked one above the other was a bit painful and I developed a back pain after a while.

My on the road setup typically involves a folding portable monitor (asus zenscreen duo, or something to that effect - that is 2x 1080p). Easily enough, and I don't really see a decrease in my efficiency.

But I sometimes do long distance flights and then I code/work on a single screen. I absolutely can do the same thing that I can do with my 6 screen setup with almost not noticeable effect on productivity as well. Could it be that the extra screens are just useless and an illusion of added productivity?

I find real loss on a single screen in many cases; so much so that I'll get up and move downstairs to get the extra screens.

It really depends on what kind of work I'm doing - and if I'm on the plane, I'm going to likely do work that does well single-screen; replying to emails, dicking around on HN, etc.

But in maxscreen mode (or at least two screens) then I'm "doing" something on the main screen while looking at reference material, output, chat, other things on the second.

If I am writing backend code I am mostly in a single IDE window moving tabs with code files to other screens is working but is inconvenient.

When I work on frontend I much rather have preview on second screen and most likely reference next to it.

When writing documentation or requirements I cannot imagine working on a single screen as essentially I am integrating multiple data sources into one, like I need to see how app looks now and before release, what changed and still have my working space for draft.

Switching windows to quickly look up documentation is fine but when creating requirements having time to understand what needs to be in which place how it has to evolve I need to have it right there so that my imagination doesn’t runaway.

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