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Peter Wiles wrote: There is also developer morale to take notice of
Sure no doubt, however I firmly believe for most developers a second monitor is a source of constant context switching because from what people have told me they put a lot of stuff up in the second display that distracts them while they're working such as email, IM, etc.
Personally I think if you care about morale most developers would like freedom more than anything.
The days of offices full of tiny cubicles full of developers should have died a long time ago for anyone less than a behemoth like Microsoft or Google or Facebook. I don't see any reason for developers to be forced to work in any time or place in particular. I'd rather hire a developer over the internet and judge them based on the work they perform and how they get it done and what equipment they use are their own business as long as the quality code is there. I could care less if I ever meet them face to face. If they want to work in an office they can go to one of those shared office spaces.
Cubicle farms and incessant meetings are a crazy inefficient anachronism in this day and age.
There is no failure only feedback
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I thought similarly about context switching, that the second monitor would be nothing but a distraction. It can be, for sure. After trying for a while I found that I can actually make my development context bigger by using multiple monitors, and thus not context switch as much. I shut off IM, email, and everything non-development related when going into a development context, but now I have my test classes, the code I'm testing, the test runner, perhaps the use case or story I'm working on, a browser window ready for searching and an explorer window or command window for builds all on my screen at once. This means less flipping through task bar items and a bigger maintained context, which helps me get into a consistent development flow.
I'm not sure an isolated developer is always ideal too - yes it can work, but I personally wouldn't want that as a permanent situation because I find a lot of my learning is through others and what they can teach me and how they can call out my bad ideas. I guess we could communicate via other means, but the team room is a great facilitator of learning. Some developers would prefer to be on their own all day, others find that horrible and get lonely. But I agree, the cubicle farm model is terrible - we tend to prefer small teams and can facilitate people working from home or even other cities when it makes sense.
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I currently use two monitors both at work and at home.
I used to have three monitors at work before "upgrading" to a new computer. It was nice since I had the desk space for them. I would have VS in one, one or more SQL Server Management Studio in another, and documentation (either reading or writing) in the third. I miss that third monitor at times.
Bill
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BillLange1968 wrote: I would have VS in one, one or more SQL Server Management Studio in another, and
documentation (either reading or writing) in the third. I miss that third
monitor at times.
Nice to see someone who agrees with my multi-monitor use. I Have 4 - 1 VS, 1 SMSS, 1 Web (testing), 1 mail/chat/word/excel/etc.
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I think I don't need another one. 
luisnike19
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At my location, I have come to realize that it is no accident that I've but a single monitor (19" standard screen)
With only one monitor, the perception of my value is hopelessly marred. After all - if I were doing anything worthwhile, they'd give me another monitor so I can do it twice.
After so many years, I'm considering being heart-broken.
| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error." - Weisert | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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Complain!!!
A train station is where the train stops. A bus station is where the bus stops. On my desk, I have a work station....
_________________________________________________________
My programs never have bugs, they just develop random features.
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I could provide pictures this time  (see previous survey)
If you vote me down, my score will only get lower
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... with four machines - three desktops and one laptop with a docking station.
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And jolly nice they are too
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2 right now, but I'm going to be installing a second card and 2 more at which point I'll have a pretty awesome setup with 3 across and 1 stacked under/over the middle one.
I wasn't, now I am, then I won't be anymore.
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Two monitors make things easier, allow you to work faster as you don't have to switch continuously from one app to another one...
When it is time to test applications that must always be "OnTop" then it is almost a must as you can't debug.
I'd love to get 4 19" monitors or 4 22" panoramic monitors put in portrait mode.
Two are enough by now...
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I'm using two monitors, to keep reading materials on one and the development tools on the other. So I don't want to spend time on switching among them, really useful.
I appreciate your help all the time...
CodingLover 
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same here
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Yeah because alt-tab is soooo time consuming!
There is no failure only feedback
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of course. that's why I moved to two desktop. and i don't think i need three 
I appreciate your help all the time...
CodingLover
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Although I currently have two monitors, I really would like 3.
Unfortunately insufficient room on my desk and, more importantly, too much room in my wallet prevents me.
Henry Minute
Do not read medical books! You could die of a misprint. - Mark Twain
Girl: (staring) "Why do you need an icy cucumber?"
“I want to report a fraud. The government is lying to us all.”
I wouldn't let CG touch my Abacus!
When you're wrestling a gorilla, you don't stop when you're tired, you stop when the gorilla is.
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I'm currently working on a dual monitor configuration attached to my desktop computer plus a laptop.
I'm using InputDirector to interact with the Laptop using the same keyboard/mouse.
I'm a web developer so this laptop acts like my tests environment and also mail/feeds reader.
When I really need a 3rd monitor for the main machine I use MaxiVista, works pretty well.
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AlexCode wrote: I'm currently working on a dual monitor configuration attached to my desktop
computer plus a laptop.
Well, if you're going to start counting second machines...
My main setup is lattop+3 external monitors.
But, at the moment, I have a 2nd laptop.
So should I have put my count as 5?
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Derek Dongray wrote: So should I have put my count as 5?
I think so
In front of me I have 3 monitors, despite one of them is a laptop, it's still a monitor, and I use it!
btw, how are you connecting 3 monitors to your laptop? USB monitor or a dongle?
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The laptop is a Dell Latitude E6410 with dock, so one monitor connects via one of the 2 DVI outputs on the dock. The on-board NVIDIA NVS 3100M drives that and the builtin display. The other 2 monitors are connected by WS-Tech USB-DVI devices. The DisplayLink software works fine for Windows (XP/7/7SP1) but, unfortunately, there are no Linux drivers (yet).
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Cool!
Never knew anyone who actually used those adaptors.
How's the image quality?
Does it handle graphics well? I'm not talking about games, just Windows 7 AERO Theme with everything on in a 1920x1200 resolution.
Cheers!
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One runs 1050x1680, the other runs at 1280x1024. The spec says the adapters will do 1920x1080 but my monitors won't. 
Aero works fine and I haven't noticed any problem evden (with playing video) when used normally.
There does seem to be a slight delay when the UAC darkens the screens and when the screensaver cuts in, they just seem to black out, but I haven't noticed anything else.
I'd recommend them to anyone. The devices I use are the same as these[^]
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1. At home, i use 2 monitors by now. 2 of them are really good, if i play games like League of legends ... or i just play at the first monitor and chat on the other monitor.
2. At job, i only have 1 monitor because the company hasn't enough money for another monitor i think...
3. At my intership as gameprogrammer 2 months ago, i had 2 monitors, a ipad (games for ipad) and a headset for music at my workplace. This was really cool, on the first monitor i had my source code, the second monitor i had some private stuff at most time... or folder browser, photoshop etc.
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