If you need more than that to work at maximum effectiveness, consider yourself High Maintenance.
I'm thinking of downgrading to an Air or MacBook just to refocus my efforts.
I'm thinking of downgrading to an Air or MacBook just to refocus my efforts.
Life is full of trade-offs and your macbook is one of them, get one it if you want, but don't pretend it defines you as super effective or low maintenance, only really our output verses cost will define that.
Citrix, remote desktop and VNC combined with the combined imagination of a few IT departments makes one screen very inefficient.
As for why people (not sneak but others) would proclaim that they are running twitter and non-related web sites at work I don't know although I'll admit that I have Whatsapp in a chrome tab and check it once in a while.
The game monitor is constantly switching between several HDMI inputs, as I'm testing on multiple consoles and my PC. I need to verify my change on all platforms after all. A dedicated HDMI switch was provided when the 3+ inputs on the monitor itself turned out to be insufficient.
I want to debug multiplayer. Figuring out which of the 5+ chrome windows full of documentation tabs I want back afterwards is a needless distraction, but even ignoring that: I don't have enough monitors to dedicate one to each debugger instance and each game instance. The IDEs are already cramped on a single monitor, with tabs of code, watched variables, logs, and breakpoints all divide and subdivide the space. I routinely spill IDE tabs into a second monitor for minor bugfixing, and now they get half a monitor each.
I wish to double check a function signature in the docs. A new chrome instance opens, covering up the already cramped confines of what I'm working on. I glance - no wait, it's been covered up. I alt tab back and forth a few times, and then notice some parameters had their order swapped. I buy a commercial license for Input Director out of pocket to treat my netbook as another monitor suitable for reading docs - I might be high maintenance, but it's no problem if I cover the cost myself, right? Even so, I continue split monitors between multiple IDEs.
I fix the bug in the inlined function. The entire C++ universe must now be rebuilt, because precompiled headers were abused. The overbuilt 6 core monster I inherited from another dev maxes out all it's cores. Fortunately, I already bugged IT into adding an SSD to it. While waiting for that rebuild to complete, I fix a serialization bug I noticed while fixing this bug - unfortunately it's a breaking change. I now have to rebuild 100GB+ of optimized-for-runtime-on-x-platform assets.
A designer complains that everything is crashing. For everyone. It will be at least an hour before everything finishes rebuilding for me. I wish I had another useful computer, that I might be able to investigate the issue (the netbook can't run anything of note.) Eventually, sheepishly, I ask IT about it. Despite my concerns that I'm being unreasonable, they see no issue and are more than happy to provide what is now my 3rd machine.
I buy myself a 4K monitor for work, the cheapest one I can find, again out of pocket because I don't feel I can justify the purchase from a business perspective - but still want one. My computers only have 3 outputs each, but this at least makes side by side IDEs less cramped. For the first time in my life, I choose an IDE font size other than "smallest possible" as monitor DPI stops being the bottleneck.
I no longer have to constantly drag the divider back and forth when doing side-by-side comparisons in P4Diff, which I use for every code review. I realize I can totally justify it.
Also, physically, the screen on an Air or many of these new MacBooks is one fourth the size of just one of the three screens on my desktop. I suppose you can get by if you're just doing email or writing, but I'll stick with my full workstation for developing software. Two monitors is an absolute minimum, but the third one is nice for stashing Fiddler or the Chrome dev tool windows in.
I respectfully disagree. I use a 27" external monitor with a MacBook Pro as my keyboard and mouse. I find external mice and keyboards too wide. It's been a while since I used a full sized keyboard but I find they make my right shoulder ache.
Since I can touch type I don't really miss the keypad at all. In fact I remap Caps Lock to Ctrl and use Ctrl-h, Ctrl-m, Ctrl-i (in Colemak) so that I don't have to reach for backspace, return and tab. That saves my right wrist, which seems to be a bit weak.
Then again I spend a lot of time in a tmux window with short cuts to move about, so that might be why it works for me.
[Updates for grammar]
My assertion is still that full sized keyboards and mice aren't necessarily better than laptops with track pads I guess YMMV.
Other thoughts - if you find a full-size keyboard uncomfortable, and prefer a custom keymapping, sounds like you might like the Happy Hacking Keyboard and a mouse of your choice:
https://elitekeyboards.com/products.php?sub=pfu_keyboards,hh...
It isn't cheap, but the compact nature of it allows you to have your mouse hand much closer. CTRL/CAPS swapping is considered also.
A simple tenkeyless (keyboard ends before the tenkey) might be suitable as well.
Of course if you're happy with your setup as is, that's all that matters. As is the common view in this thread, do whatever works for you.