How many monitors improve programming speed?

Question

How many monitors improve programming speed? Do you have any experience with programming using 1,2,3,4... monitors? Which configurations increase work speed and are worth trying out? Is it worth using 90 degrees rotated screens?

Answer 1

In my experience you'll want at least 2. If you can get more then even better!

Answer 2

One greatly improves speed, unless you're blind.

Answer 3

I think 2 monitors improve your efficiency by a very large factor, and anything more than that is overkilling it. Come on, what can you do with 3 monitors that you can't do with 2?

Answer 4

I prefer one screen personally. I got a 42" LCD for precisely that reason. :D

Answer 5

The most I have ever used at once was 3 and it seemed to me that my productivity dropped at that point. There comes a point when too much input and too many places to look for data becomes a problem.

I recommend two monitors as this has been the best thing for me. But you won't know the best thing for you unless you try each one and see what works.

Answer 6

I've been using dual/triple monitor development for sometime now and I'm beginning to feel that it would better to have just one large hi-res screen.

The reason being that even as I type this I realise that I should've have moved this browser window to the screen in front of me. Instead I'm craning my neck, its not very ergonmic.

Answer 7

I have two, but one oriented horizontally (1680x1050) and one vertically (1050x1680). The latter is goodfor reading online documentation.

I would like a pair of 1600x1200s really, it's a better aspect ratio for programming.

Answer 8

I recently moved from 2 regular screens (19") to a single wide-screen monitor with roughly the same screen acreage as the original 2.

Personally I much prefer the single large screen as I can arrange my main code window to be in the centre of the screen with other tool windows etc off to the sides. This reduces the amount of twisting I do with my neck and so minimises tension in the neck and back and makes for a more pleasant working posture.

With 2 screens you generally have a break in the middle so you are always looking either left of right. So I would go for 3 screens or 1 screen, but not 2.

Answer 9

It simply comes down to what you do, how much context switching you need and what stops impeding your workflow.

As an example of why more is not always better - I run a Linux desktop at work, and had completely got used to virtual destops (i.e. one holds my email client, another for my IDE, another for my virtual machine(s) etc.) before a spare monitor was going free at work. I thought that a dual monitor setup would make things better, so connected it off and tried it out.

To my surprise I found myself unable to really gain any advantage from it. I was so used to hitting the shortcuts to change desktops that I was able to do it without thinking and without interrupting my flow. Even though I was trying to force myself to take advantage of the second monitor, there were actually very few things that I needed to see side-by-side at one time, that took up more than the single screen.

So after a week or so, I disconnected the second monitor and haven't missed it at all since.

In the end, it all depends on how much you need to keep an eye on at one time. If you're an Air Traffic Controller for example (or in a more reliastic sense if you need to keep an eye on lots of logs/figures while working on something else) then the more monitors the better, more likely. On the other hand if you work on well-divided tasks, with each application doing the single thing well to present you with all the information you need for that specific context, then you probably won't see much improvement with a second monitor.

Answer 10

For a modern IDE you need at least 1600x1200 or 1680x1050 (or close to) to work efficiently. When I have that I dont really feel the need for more monitors and I prefer to use virtual desktops. That way I can at least look straight infront of me on the screen and I dont have to look sideways. Personally I'd rather have a large monitor than several small ones.

Answer 11

See also: Programming and multiple monitors and One large monitor or dual monitor setup. (There are more questions on monitors).

Answer 12

Two is the optimal luxury. I doubt more than this will do anything good for you, well, except maybe for the ladies attention ;)

IMO having proper software tools (unix screen, mac spaces, virtual desktops etc.) will let you get the job done faster. Sorry for making this sound trivial, but after all it's all about typing.

Answer 13

How much you benefit from more screen real estate depends a lot on what you do and what tools you use.

As an example, I use a number of virtual machines, each in its own window on the screen. This uses up a lot of space on the screen. When I do stuff concurrently in several virtual machines (e.g., testing Ubuntu installations), I need to keep an eye on several windows at a time. Because of this, more screen surface is better for me. I currently use two monitors, and am thinking of adding a third, at which point I will probably be satisfied.

There was a time when I mainly worked on a single, relatively small (but tricky) source tree, without a need for reference materials. I was very happy and productive with a 12-inch laptop screen. (This also made it very comfortable to work in an armchari or on the couch.)

Stefan Didak's and Mitch Haile's home office FAQs may interest you. They have descriptions of what what they do and why they use several monitors.

Answer 14

Two for me because that gives you the real estate to make comparisons (of one form or another), 99% of which are between two things, not more, without being overloaded.

Answer 15

3 x 19" wide screens are my favorite setup.

Answer 16

I work on a 22" wide monitor copuled with a 19" and it works for me. However i think your question can't get an absolute answer like "3 monitors with these dimensions ..." because you have to consider many factors, first of all the type of informations you need to visualize and the kind of job you do. My advice is simply to have a try with some configurations and find yourself the one that suits your needs :)

Answer 17

If you develop GUI applications and want to break into the debugger, then having at least two screens is very valuable. This means you can keep a breakpoint in an OnPaint type method and not hit it every time you switch back to your application. If you only have one screen, then switching back to it causes a repaint. With more desktop space, the app doesn't get invalidated.

I use 3 x 19" (1280 x 1024) screens at work and love it. Visual Studio is great with two coding buffers (screen 0 & 1) and panels (solution explorer, output and R# errors, etc) on screen 2.

At home I have a 30" Dell (2560 x 1600) screen. This screen is very tall which means you can see a lot of code, but the width is hard to manage. The DPI is also very high which means that the font size I use at work (9pt) is too small at home. Hence, some of those extra pixels are lost in adding sharpness to the text. The best thing about this 30" monitor is that there are no dividers anywhere in your desktop, unlike when you use multiple monitors. This gives better flexibility within the available space.

I'm hoping that the next version of Visual Studio will deliver on the promise of better multi-monitor support.

Answer 18

I have one 1920x1200 monitor, and prefer that over two monitors. I use xmonad as a window manager, and that basically means I can control what is displayed where and when with a keystroke or two. Pressing a key to switch desktops is easier than turning your head to look at a different monitor. With practice, you imagine what you want to see, and it shows up.

I have used two monitors with xmonad, and I find that I typically use the harder-to-see monitor as a "staging area" for windows that I may want to work with later. When I actually want to interact with them, I usually pull its desktop over to my main monitor, work on it, and then send it back to the other monitor.

I know you can't do things like this with OS X or Windows... so if you use those you may want two monitors. But you might like to try xmonad (or similar) before you shell out $500 for another monitor.