4K Is For Programmers 520
An anonymous reader writes "The 4K television revolution is upon us, and nobody is impressed. Most users seem content to wait until there's actually something to watch on these ultra-high-res displays, and also for the price to come down. However, Brian Hauer has written an article promoting a non-standard use for these displays. His office just got a 39", 3840x2160 display for each of their programmers' workstations. He now confidently declares, 'For the time being, there is no single higher-productivity display for a programmer.' Hauer explains: 'Four editors side-by-side each with over a hundred lines of code, and enough room to spare for a project navigator, console, and debugger. Enough room to visualize the back-end service code, the HTML template, the style-sheet, the client-side script, and the finished result in a web browser — all at once without one press of Alt-tab.'"
where do I sign? (Score:5, Funny)
Must... reopen... Dell financing account.
Re:where do I sign? (Score:5, Insightful)
> Must... reopen... Dell financing account.
It isn't like these are some crazy-expensive $3000 monitors.
They are only $500 at Amazon.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DOPGO2G [amazon.com]
Re:where do I sign? (Score:4, Informative)
Don't forget the new video card and/or laptop and/or desktop that is capable of driving the full 4K resolution...
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Been using 2K for a few months (Score:3, Funny)
And it is really awesome for coding. I'm sure 4K is even better.
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Oh, for "-1, Used subject line as first line of comment".
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Why not just multiple monitors. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why not just multiple monitors. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Why not just multiple monitors. (Score:4, Insightful)
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If you aren't afraid of the command line, then you can do this on Windows, too.
Using the "win" command in NirCmd [nirsoft.net], you can screw around with window sizes and placement. The "window" command of the for-pay software Take Command [jpsoft.com] can do this as well. There are also ways to manipulate windows in Powershell [stackoverflow.com].
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I completely agree. For programming, multiple monitors is great. I can have documentation or a local copy of the web app running in one display and my code window in the other. I have two displays at work, one in portrait and the other landscape. Works very well for web development.
Now, this giant monitor might be great for gaming.
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Re:Why not just multiple monitors. (Score:4, Insightful)
Wait for it...
60Hz is just starting to show up. Dell's got two monitors available now and 1 that should be available real soon now that do 4k at 60Hz over DisplayPort 1.2a. There are a couple other monitors out there that also do 60Hz and a TV with HDMI 2 that'll be out soon. Unfortunately there aren't many video cards that support it yet and firmware/driver issues are just starting to get ironed out. Give it another 6 months and you should be able to get a good setup for gaming. (Of course, then you might have trouble with 4k support in existing games.)
Re:Why not just multiple monitors. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's probably true for most users. But when you disable raise-on-click and and choose to raise windows with either another mouse button or alt-click, maximize starts to seem really *really* silly. I personally work with windows on top of other windows, making better use of my screen real estate than most people.
Now mentally, I could see how many small monitors helps you to organize windows like workspaces. That would be a plus.
Re:Why not just multiple monitors. (Score:5, Informative)
There's a third way. Try a tiling window manager.
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At least, that's what I'd like to see.
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My Dell 27" 1440p monitor came with an application that let you "snap" windows to various locations, more so than the normal two-side-by-side Windows does. You could set up various modes, from a few asymmetric two-side-by-sides at the least dense, to (I believe) a three-by-three grid. I ended up not using it, since the productive stuff I do with it actually works best with just the Windows normal setup.
I'm sure there's similar free software for your OS of choice if Dell managed to put it on their driver dis
Re:Why not just multiple monitors. (Score:4, Insightful)
Unfortunately, I feel this band-aid of using multiple monitors has held back the rise of bigger monitors in general.
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In principle you could essentially emulate multiple monitors with one big display.
Well yes, but most that use a three screen setup angle the side screens somewhat so it'd have to be one really big, curved display not just a 21:9+ ultra wide. That would be really sweet for a games setup, multi-monitor gaming just doesn't appeal to me at all with those bezels.
Re:Why not just multiple monitors. (Score:5, Interesting)
> There are in principle NO advantages to a multiple monitor setup. In principle you could essentially emulate multiple monitors with one big display. In fact it's better to have a single big display
I use 3 monitors for development on Linux:
27" @ 1920x1080 via HDMI
24" @ 1080x1920 via Dual-Link DVI (NOT a typo, monitor has been rotated 90 degrees), and
27" @ 2560x1440 via DisplayPort
My total horizontal resolution is 5560
When I click maximize on my rotated 24" 1080x1920 I don't have to worry about it accidentally wasting space on the ENTIRE workspace.
Uhm, sorry, but you don't know what the fuck you are talking about.
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> You missed the bit where I said 'in principle' and 'emulate'. B
Uh, why do you think I provided a counter-example of maximizing a window.
Emulation != Original. In this case it is a poor copy of the original.
Re:Why not just multiple monitors. (Score:4, Insightful)
Then if you really want to use the WHOLE screen, you can do that too.
I don't use fullscreen @ 30" (Score:2)
I've used two screens before and think that's pretty good for some uses as well. I just don't see a need for extra screens if the main one is large enough. I suspect "large enough" means no commonly use
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There is a minimum legible text size, a minimum for distinguishing icons. And ergonomic reasons for not having to move your eyes and head too much. I think that places an upper bound on screen size. Resolution has to scale with distance, but makes no sense to have a high rez screen further away.
At that point, you have the option of multiple displays, reorienting yourself to see one or the other. People may argue a large screen allows that, but to combat eye fatigue you want those areas walled off. Physical
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Because multiple monitor support is poop in every OS in some way. It always falls down somewhere. I want it to be as good as using one of those devices that splits one video signal onto multiple monitors, but it never is. I want it to work equally well as three distinct displays or as one unified display, and it never does.
I want one 4k display, and as soon as it doesn't cost more than the rest of my system put together, I'll upgrade. I have an early 25.5" IPS display at 1920x1200 now. It's got some ghostin
Character size? (Score:2)
I like the idea of a higher-resolution monitor letting me fit more in to the same space, but what's the physical size of a legible character on one of those things?
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Pretty much the same as on 19" fullHD display.
It's the same PPI, you insensible clod!
Re:Character size? (Score:5, Insightful)
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4k makes sense at half that size; we just don't expect it yet. High-DPI monitors look beautiful, provided the interface displayed on them is similarly high-dpi. I've been watching them make their way up through phones and tablets to laptops, waiting for the day that I could have one at my workstation.
I never want to see a pixel again.
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Plus, as I said in another post, arranging windows is easier on multiple monitors
That's a flaw in your window manager. Tiling window managers work well for this.
Philip J. Fry (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Philip J. Fry (Score:5, Insightful)
Shut up and take my employer's money.
Window manager? (Score:2)
Which window manager handles such a large display best? Modern desktop environments, whether we talk about Gnome or Windows or Mac OS X, tend to work best when you let one window take over the entire screen. Mac OS X and modern Gnome with the top-of-the-screen menu bar in particular is fairly unhelpful with a sufficiently large screen.
Can you just split it into four subscreens and do a reverse Xinerama? It makes me a bit sad that this is the state of the art after 30 years or so of GUI development.
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Which window manager handles such a large display best? Modern desktop environments, whether we talk about Gnome or Windows or Mac OS X, tend to work best when you let one window take over the entire screen.
Windows actually handles this pretty well with the Snap [microsoft.com] feature.
All you have to do is press Win+Left to get a window to take up exactly the left half of the screen, or Win+Right to take up just the right half. So having two windows side-by-side is very quick and easy. Also, if you vertically resize a w
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KDE 4 has a nice take on the Windows 7 snap feature. Drag a window to a corner and it will take up that quarter of the screen. Drag to a side and it will take up that half. and drag to top to full screen.
I primarily use the half-screen option but with 4k I could easily see myself doing 1/4 window apps.
Inclined to agree ... (Score:3)
I have no interest whatsoever in changing my TV over to 4K resolution -- because there's no content, because I don't care and don't see the benefit, and because my current big screen and associated stuff is still really new.
But, I'd dearly love to have that kind of resolution for my monitor. That much screen resolution and real-estate would be awesome, especially in a dual monitor setup.
However, it's still technology, which means I refuse to be on the bleeding edge of it. I know a lot of people who bought HD TVs early in the game, only to find out that the evolving spec and addition of DRM made their TVs obsolete before they ever really got to see them fully used.
I predict there will be at least one generation of this technology which ends up getting abandoned and the purchasers will be left holding the bag.
For TV, I figure just because Sony et al want to believe I should be replacing my TV stuff every few years -- well, that's not my problem.
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If this was $2000, or even $1000 I'd agree with you, but at $500 many of us can easily afford it and get plenty of use out of it, despite knowing that we'll be replacing it with a true 120hz 4K display for a reasonable price in a couple of years. I also don't see support for these monitors being dropped. Nvidia and AMD aren't going to stop allowing selection of 4K resolution at 30hz.
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I have no interest whatsoever in changing my TV over to 4K resolution -- because there's no content...
Actually, Netflix announced that they will begin streaming 4k content today: Netflix App to Stream 4K on New TVs Immediately [go.com]
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As far as TVs go, our living room TV is still a standard definition set and will remain so until it dies. While I'd love to upgrade the the newest shiny thing every time some trivial upgrade comes out, my bank account has different ideas. So we'll run the standard definition TV into the ground before upgrading. (We have a small HD set in our bedroom because our SD set there died.) As far as 4K TVs go? I'll probably wind up upgrading to one of those sometime around 2030. Maybe by then they'll have cont
Dual Dell 30" 1600p (Score:2)
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You could always buy a 24" at the same resolution from Dell [dell.com], available right now. Of course, you're going to be forking over $1300 if you want it today. Or you can pony up a whopping $3500 and get their 32" (who are they kidding with that price point from 2012?). The Dell 28" UltraHD available January 23rd will be $700. Considerably more expensive than the Seiki model, but in the size you like and at least the price point is within shouting distance.
Nobody is impressed? (Score:2)
Too big (Score:4, Insightful)
You can currently buy a 2560x1440 27" display for around $350. The Seiki display they refer to is actually two 1920x2160 panels stitched together and limited to a painful 30hz. Second, the monitor is not 4k, it's 3840x2160 which is only UHD. 4k is 4096x2160.
Finally, this is a nearly 40 inch display. They look ridiculous as a computer monitor and the ergonomics suck.
Just give us 4k in a 27-30" form factor for people that aren't blind. I'm amazed that phones can have higher pixel densities than computer monitors.
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The Seiki display they refer to is actually two 1920x2160 panels stitched together...
Citation?
None of the reviews on Amazon mention a visible seam, and I find it very hard to believe that could be done without one.
Re:Too big (Score:4, Informative)
We used to say the same about 24-27" monitors.
I have (4) 22-27" displays on my desk arranged in a 2x2 array, which measures almost 45-48" diagonally. Being able to replace that with a single 40" display would be rather nice. Granted, they might need to curve it a bit for it to be properly ergonomic for desktop use. (Hidden advantage of the 2x2 array of monitors is that I can turn each one inward a bit to be properly aligned for my field of vision).
A 32" 4K display would be just about perfect for replacing the right-half of my monitor array.
The other trick you learn with multiple displays arranged in a 2x2 array is that you put less important information in the upper screens.
Biometrics security will be obsolete (Score:2)
When you have enough resolution to zoom in and accurately reconstruct Kim Kardashian's retina and fingerprints.
Re:Biometrics security will be obsolete (Score:5, Funny)
But 40" won't be enough to view her ass.
Video Card Question (Score:3, Interesting)
So what sort of video card do I need to drive a few (2 to 4) of these at one time?
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GTX650 or better: http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-650/specifications [geforce.com]
Few cards have multiple HDMI ports, so you'd probably want DisplayPort to HDMI converters.
Gosh, ya think? (Score:2)
I've been clamoring for larger, higher-resolution displays since the days when I chose a 16x64-character TRS-80 instead of a 24x40 PET or Apple II, and longed for the luxury of a 24x80 terminal.
The sad thing is that now, with higher-DPI displays finally coming into the mainstream, my eyes are losing their ability to focus on close objects. My iPad could display hundreds of columns of text, but I wouldn't be able to read them. Yeah, yeah, computer glasses.
I spent quite some time drooling over the 4K displays
The Other 4K (Score:5, Insightful)
Was I the only one who thought about the 4K demo coding contests when reading the headline?
Not so much... (Score:2)
> Hauer explains: 'Four editors side-by-side each with over a hundred lines of code, and enough room to spare for a project navigator, console, and debugger. Enough room to visualize the back-end service code, the HTML template, the style-sheet, the client-side script, and the finished result in a web browser — all at once without one press of Alt-tab.
"Yeah, got one of those. It'd do all that, except the OS only allows me to display one fullscreen app at a time. In really REALLY high resolution,
47" at home (Score:2)
I currently use a 47" TV as primary monitor at home. Would be nice to replace with higher resolution, but I'm waiting for prices to come down.
I'd much rather sit back in an easy chair and relax than worry about ergonomics.
Aw Man! (Score:2)
You went and spilled the beans about 'alt-tab'!
Now it's going to be harder to find people to amaze by showing them how they can swap between applications without taking their hands off the keyboard.
Ruined all my fun...
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Bingo. My first thought when I read TFS was "my neck hurts already."
4K is for sprendthrifts.
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Try it some time. It's amazing how quickly people will talk trash about something they've never tried.
I used a 37" 1920x1080 monitor for years before it started having image persistence problems. From 2' away, I had full view of the entire screen from both eyes (and my nose isn't tiny). I could see every part of the monitor perfectly without moving my head. It was a great monitor.
Now I'm using three 27" 2560x1440 monitors. I kinda miss the low DPI of the old monitor but I like all the extra work space.
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I don't have to try it with one of these, I've done it with smaller screens. I have no reason to believe that making the monitor bigger will solve the problem rather than exacerbate it.
Re:39" display for workstations? (Score:4, Interesting)
If you really like large workspaces, you may like future generations of the Oculus Rift displays.
Once they get the latencies really low, fix the image quality issues (and maybe reduce the weight - no one's complained yet but maybe for hours of work they might), you'd have as big a "screen" as you can manage.
Check this out: http://gizmodo.com/i-wore-the-new-oculus-rift-and-i-never-want-to-look-at-1496569598 [gizmodo.com]
Then imagine you are looking at huge virtual workspaces as large and as many as you can handle. Even better if there's tech to fade in and out of virtual/actual reality without removing the goggles - so you can do augmented reality, switch to full virtual or full "real world".
So I'm not really that excited by these large high res physical screens. To me we should already have had high res screens a decade ago, but we were stuck on or even regressed to crappy resolutions for too long.
Yes I'm impatient- I'm not getting any younger and it's disappointing to know that so many things should already be possible but aren't implemented yet.
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Bingo. My first thought when I read TFS was "my neck hurts already."
4K is for sprendthrifts.
Most developers these days run dual- or triple-screen setups with at least 22" monitors; the edge-to-edge width of that would be larger than that of one single 40" 4K screen -- albeit with much less vertical resolution.
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At 16 inches, going from UL to LR of my 24", and being able to read the time requires head movement. Not sure what kind of multi-faceted insect eyes you might have but not everybody has 200 degrees of peripheral vision.
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I only need eye movement to go from corner to corner on my 24" LCD but I usually sit at 30-36" since any closer than that strains my eyes when I have my glasses on.
Peripheral vision is somewhat rubbish for reading or writing: put your mouse pointer in a random location, then focus your eyes on it and try to see how many words around the pointer you are able to read without moving your head or eyes off the mouse pointer... the ability to recognize stuff like letters drops off sharply beyond 10-15 degrees fro
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An interesting point. Not a rule of thumb I've heard before, admittedly, but if it's true, it does make the whole '3" monitor' concept even more ridiculous.
Re:39" display for workstations? (Score:5, Informative)
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Just to correct the record, the Seiki UltraHD monitors were marked down to $500 well before Christmas. They were that price early in December.
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Yeah, because they have a 30Hz refresh rate. No thanks!
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A 39" widescreen (16:9) has an area of about 650 sq inches (~40in x ~19.12in). A 22" widescreen is about 207 sq inches (~19.2in x ~10.75in). I use three 22" widescreens at home, which is a pretty optimal setup, but I would gladly trade it for a single 39" because it gives you slightly more viewing space, but changes it from a very long X axis and very short Y axis to a balanced X and Y axis, which seems like it would be a little more ergonomic. You can't compare it to a single 27" monitor because that's not
Re:39" display for workstations? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you were an investor you'd be upset at a company spending $500 a head replacing programmer's monitors? Sorry, but that's idiotic.
Almost any non-negligible productivity improvement is going to recoup $500 over the lifespan of an LED monitor.
Obligatory XKCD (Score:4, Informative)
Almost any non-negligible productivity improvement is going to recoup $500 over the lifespan of an LED monitor.
Agreed. Obligatory XKCD [xkcd.com].
For a programmer earning $80,000/year if you can shave off 1.5 seconds 50 times per day you'll recoup the investment in 5 years. Shave off 6 seconds 50 times per day and you recoup the investment in 1.25 years. I use a multi-monitor setup and have recouped the cost many times over and I'm not even a programmer.
Re: 39" display for workstations? (Score:3)
$500 is like 3 days pay... Or pocket change compared to the cost if wages and benifits.
I see this being super productive for "cloud" administration as well. When I was doing Blade server admin, I'd have one or two windows open for the OS partition(s), one for working with the SAN storage, one for toggling optical/tape media in the media server, and one for the VIO server to manage the hardware... Fitting it all on one screen would be really efficient.
Re:39" display for workstations? (Score:5, Informative)
No. They are $500. It's right in the article.
Here. Buy one.
http://www.amazon.com/Seiki-Digital-SE39UY04-39-Inch-Ultra/dp/B00DOPGO2G
Re:39" display for workstations? (Score:5, Informative)
At $500 a piece
we had been using antiquated pairs of 19-inch monitors. An upgrade was needed
It's amazing how irrelevant many comments become after you RTFA.
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Re:39" display for workstations? (Score:4, Interesting)
A PWM should never reach 100% since that means it has run out of headroom to adjust to input voltage fluctuations and therefore cannot regulate output anymore. A plain backlight PWM will be firing at well over 1kHz, far beyond anything the human eye could possibly detect and with LED-based backlights, the PWM's output may very well be filtered to DC current. On a display with Lightboost enabled though, the strobe rate is proportional to vsync and could yield perceivable flicker.
With my camera on 1/800s shutter speed, I'm not managing to capture any signs of flicker on my LED-lit LCD set at 20% brightness, which tells me either the pulse rate is much higher than that (otherwise I would have wild fluctuations in brightness between shots depending on the -1/0/+1 pulses in a given exposure) or the backlight LEDs are receiving filtered output from the PWM. (Most likely both since it is much easier and cheaper to filter higher frequency PWM output and it eliminates the need to shield the LED array for EMI compliance.)
Re:39" display for workstations? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, because spending $500 on a monitor is just outrageous. That's an insane amount of money to spend on equipment for someone paid several times that amount every week.
Re: 39" display for workstations? (Score:5, Insightful)
Response from management:
Eh, accounting says we don't have that kind of money and down in the basement we have some old green screen apple ][ monitors. Programmers just look at text anyway right?
I have a business meeting in cancun, and will be out of the office for three weeks...
Re:39" display for workstations? (Score:5, Funny)
My "workstation" is a seven year old laptop that I can buy on eBay for $50. I make more than that per hour. I've offered to bring in my own hardware, but - no unapproved hardware on the network. And no admin rights, because, you know, I might break my $50 PC, so if I need to change an environment variable it's a week wait for a helpdesk maggot to show up.
It's just a side effect of senior management not having a clue as to what we do and seeing developers as nothing more than a cost.
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Why the fuck are you still there?
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Making more than 50$/hour ?
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for $50. I make more than that per hour.
I'd put up with a lot for that.
Re:39" display for workstations? (Score:5, Insightful)
So let me get this straight:
You'd be angry that the company was spending some tiny fraction of the programmer's total annual cost (salary + taxes +pension + health insurance + building overheads + support overheads)--even smaller when you amortize it over the life of the monitor--to make the expensive programmers more productive.
You're nuts.
Are you also angry that they've got decent computers rather than underspecced, second hand $100 shitboxes?
If it costs you $10k per year to make the programmer 10% productive, that's going to be a substantial win unless you have very cheap programmers.
Re:39" display for workstations? (Score:4, Informative)
I once saw an entire team of 10 decent programmers turned into door stops because spending 10 dollars more for each one was 'too much for the budget'. Yeah so is losing 3 weeks of work out of them while we RMA monitors and buy the right ones ANYWAY. Out of the computers that were bought 5 for DOA. One actually had screws loose in the case. I picked it up and heard ratle ratle ratle. "let me get you a different one you do not want this one". I was able to build 1 working out of those 5. Instead of doing my real job of writing code.
You dont have to buy people 10k rigs. But dont buy the 200 dollar special at sears and hope it works.
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If it costs you $10k per year to make the programmer 10% productive
Does that mean it will cost $100k to make the programmer 100% productive?
Keep the old computer being replaced (Score:3)
Are you also angry that they've got decent computers rather than underspecced, second hand $100 shitboxes?
I suspect that if every programmer had to use a $100 second-hand shitbox, that indignity would be justified by the time that I alone would recover from hourglasses, beach balls, and other various twirlies.
A previous employer found a compromise. We had two computers on our desk, a current decent machine (not extravagant though) and the older machine that it replaced. Our software was expected to run well on both machines.
Re:39" display for workstations? (Score:5, Interesting)
you're kidding right? a monitor will last you easily 6-7 years (my monitor at work is nearly 8 and it's still running just fine) and a large/high-res monitor will give you a noticeable increase in productivity, and you are angry about a $100/head/year expenditure? maybe you'd want his programmers not to have desks but just a sheet of plywood on some sawhorses since that'd be cheaper? stools instead of ergonomic chairs?
If anything, if I was an investor I'd be more angry about him cheaping out on a repurposed tv and not spending $2-3k for a 'proper' 60Hz 4k monitor (mouse lag would drive me nuts) but that's just me.
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Re:39" display for workstations? (Score:4, Informative)
you don't need a beefy PSU just because you are doing 2d, modern graphic cards are very energy efficient and if you are not playing games they are not going to suck 300W. You also don't need a top of the line graphics card if you're not playing games, as far as I know you can drive 4k off a GT 640 which is only $100.
The article is about text editing / web development it seems, if it was about 3d or video then I would agree.
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I'm going to put this into a language you can understand:
LOL N00B
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Considering that a developer license for Visual Studio starts at ~$500 (without MSDN) and can go upwards of $6000 per seat, the price of the monitor which can be used for a few years is pretty small. Especially considering that MSDN (the biggest reason to use Visual Studio) is a yearly-renewed membership.
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Yeah, I have a three-monitor setup that is pretty dang sufficient. Plus, I can use window-maximizing on individual screens rather than have to manually space or automatically tile all my windows (which leads to weird window sizing that I don't like in most OS'es). Three 24" monitors take up more space, but they still actually fit on a reasonable desk, and unless you're going top of the line (which you may need for photo or video work, but not for programming), they're going to be a lot cheaper than a sing
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He seems to have gotten this on sale after Christmas for $500. However, I bought my three 22" monitors on eBay (new) for about $80 each. The 39" still has slightly more total area, but I find window management easier on multiple monitors (especially using only Windows 7's built-in window management).
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LG's got some sort of "screen splitter" software for their 21:9 monitors. Lets you break it up into 2, 3, or 4 virtual monitors of various sizes. Probably start seeing something similar built into new video drivers.
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Dell, Acer, and others announced 28" 4K monitors over the last week at CES, all right around $799 [appleinsider.com]. A little bit pricier than the Seiki, but they come with DisplayPort and are able to do 4K@60Hz, IIRC. I am currently using 2-27" 2560x1440 with a 3rd 1080p that I watch TV and movies while I am working. I probably won't upgrade until HDMI 2.0 becomes commonplace.
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Take four screenshots from today's standard 1920x1080 displays and tile them together, 2x2. Voila.
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I would weep with glee to have 200 rows of legible text in a vi window, with room for eight such windows side-by-side on my screen. In fact, I'd probably be a lot happier with full vi keybindings (which my fingers still remember after all these years) instead of an editor that expects me to mouse around for text selection and menu commands.