Do Developers Really Need a Second Monitor? 1002
jammag writes "It was an agonizing moment: a developer arrived at work to realize his second monitor had been taken (given to the accounting dept., to add insult to injury). Soon, the wailing and the gnashing of teeth began. As this project manager recounts, developers feel strongly — very strongly — about needing a second monitor (maybe a third?) to work effectively. But is this just the posturing of pampered coders, or is this much screen real estate really a requirement for today's developers?"
Maximize (Score:5, Insightful)
My opinion is this is largely a consequence of how the Maximize functionality works / has worked.
The ability to half-screen maximize by dragging a window to the left or right side of the screen helps quite a bit -- this is in Windows 7 and newer builds of Ubuntu (IIRC).
My typical reason for wanting a second monitor is the ability to maximize documentation/help stuff on one monitor while the other is reserved for the code itself. I find I work much slower on, for example, a laptop where I constantly have to switch back and forth between different windows to get at what I want.
Monitors are cheap, so why not? (Score:5, Insightful)
I bought a 24" monitor a few years back for $170, and a 23" last black frideay for $109. Why fuss about such a minor expense? If two monitors make developers 1% more producrtive, or just make developers feel "pampered" then why not?
Well (Score:5, Insightful)
It enhances productivity. (Score:5, Insightful)
If the company wants the programmer to be more productive they'll give them two monitors. That way they can run the application on one screen, or documentation, and have the IDE open on another. Having to toggle between windows while cutting and pasting, or looking for fine detail differences between output, and code is a real real real suck ass aspect of coding.
This could of course be fixed by giving them a larger monitor and fixing the way maximize works in the OS.
Easy answer (Score:5, Insightful)
Not just developers (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not just developers. I originally discovered the benefit of having a second monitor at a coding job in college - one screen for code, another for a browser to test the code and read documentation, etc.
After that, I bought myself another monitor for my desktop. Two came in great handy for translation - one monitor for source document and reference works, other monitor for your translation. It came in handy for reading electronic documents and taking notes/outlining. It's great for any job where you deal with lots of text, and need to be able to compare different documents, synthesize them, etc.
I'm now up to three. There are diminishing returns, obviously; the third isn't strictly necessary for me, but highly convenient. Any more than this would be tought for me to use effectively, though I suppose a square arrangement of four could be useful for some people.
Re:No, one 30" monitor (resolution 2560 x 1600) .. (Score:2, Insightful)
$80k Programmer * 5% increase in productivity = $4k in gain for the company.
Second monitor clocks in at around $300 + energy costs.
Hmm...
Re:I think it's kinda silly (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you ever gone from two monitors to one, though? You don't make it clear in your post.
If you haven't, try it sometime (disconnect your second monitor or something). It's incredibly painful.
Re:Monitors are cheap, so why not? (Score:5, Insightful)
Even simpler, the search&removal, the complains, the complain handling: all probably have cost more than another monitor....
Re:The second monitor is pretty vital to me. (Score:5, Insightful)
That accounting department might really have needed it.
I *don't* code, I build spreadsheets for a government finance office. Usually I'm translating a spreadsheet that's been helpfully locked into .pdf form by another government agency back into a usable spreadsheet, and being able to glance back and forth without sacrificing the full screen view is sanity preserving.
I'd wager anyone that uses a computer for work would benefit from a second monitor.
The real issue, as I see it, is that Accounting needed a monitor so instead of ordering one they took it from an employee that already had one. To the submitter of the story, as a project manager, why aren't you removing the developer's obstacles? Using a term like "wailing" makes it pretty clear what you think of the lowly developer on a personal level, but why are you asking us if they really need it instead of enabling him/her to do their job as they see fit?
I think it's needed (Score:5, Insightful)
I know this is may be kind of a weird concept, but not all of us have all of the nuances and documentation of the languages in which we work memorized. When I'm developing anything, I always have at least one window open with my IDE/editor, at least one window open (many times multiple windows open) with documentation--a window to which I refer to with such frequency that it would seriously hamper my efforts to have to click or alt-tab around to find it, at least one browser window open with Google and/or its search results, and most of the time, a window open with the project on which I'm working, and sometimes a debugging window as well.
The more code I can see at one time, the more productive I am, period. The more documentation I can see, the more productive I am, period. As for the project, it depends.
So yeah, I do think it's needed. Without dual monitors, every time I alt-tab, it costs around five seconds or so of down time while I try to get my bearings. It may not sound like much, but it happens literally hundreds of times during a coding session.
Re:Monitors are cheap, so why not? (Score:5, Insightful)
You can never have too much screen space as a developer. It is that simple. Even if it to run the Debugger in one and the application in the other. As many people pointed out that a monitor costs what? $150? $200? That is how many hours of pay for the Developer?
Even worrying about it a clear case of Penny Wise Pound foolish.
What? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're unable to splurge 130$ on a second monitor, the company is in trouble.
Another way to phrase this question is "Do you *really* need all those pixels to do your job?"
Re:Yes (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't be a snot. That Outlook monitor probably makes a real difference to allot of those folks. Usually its a matter of the company not having efficient work flow and other tools but plenty of people in the business office side of the house just LIVE in E-MAIL. Being able to look at letter and an order entry type screen at the same time means the world to them.
Just like being able to watch tail, while you do stuff in your application means the world to you.
Re:I think it's kinda silly (Score:5, Insightful)
So do "developers" need a second monitor? Probably not.
No, probably not... unless they run a debugger on their code, or read documentation, or want to compare two different source files to one another, etc.
Look, monitors cost ~$200 once. Programmers cost ~$80,000/year. Just buy the second monitor.
Putting in perspective (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't believe a decent developer comes cheaper than $100K/year in the US, counting everything. A decent, perfectly usable, monitor will run something under $200.
That means that, if the corporate budget was sane, providing the extra monitor would be worth it if it improved productivity by 0.2%. If taking the monitor away cut the developer's productivity by one half of one percent, it's costing the company more than it's worth within five months. If the developer's claim of reduced productivity is even slightly true, that's a real false economy.
The morale effects alone will probably drive down productivity by full percents. When the developer thinks the company isn't willing to spend $200 to keep him working as accustomed, the developer is likely to get a feeling that the company doesn't care how productive he or she is, and will lose motivation and an edge on hard problems. When management takes the attitude that the developer is whiny because he or she is trying to hang on to his or her tools, bad things are going to happen.
With the time needed to adjust workflow and habits to the reduced screen estate, as well as some time complaining and trying to make a business case, it's likely the developer will lose four hours very fast, and there's the money saved from not just going out and buying a monitor for Accounting.
People may not want to work for a company that does things like that. Does management have any sort of handle on how much productivity staff turnover costs them? And, of course, if the developer has any substance to the claim of reduced productivity, even in the sligh
Re:I think it's kinda silly (Score:4, Insightful)
It costs more than $200 (Score:5, Insightful)
The other thing is that sometimes people can be irrational weasels. If getting a new monitor for this guy inspires someone from accounting to request one for better spreadsheet management, and ultimately everyone down to the mailboy starts thinking they need dual displays, that's a lot of money and annoyance in the short run in exchange for relatively small productivity gains in the long run. Then you factor in the relatively small possibilities that some people who get more screen space will therefore require more desk space and thus better furniture to accommodate it, which could lead to people needing more square footage, etc.
And god help the company if someone decides that they don't need a new monitor, but someone else got something cool so they want a better chair. Some people react irrationally to the perceived status inequality behind equipment purchases. It's pure monkey brain at work, but it creates a lot of tiresome whining and bloated spending sometimes.
Anyway, you're fundamentally right. In almost any imaginable it's probably better to buy the guy a new monitor, but don't underestimate the chain of annoyances such a purchase might cause.
Re:It costs more than $200 (Score:2, Insightful)
All that stuff about extra purchasing costs may be true, but in the case in question, we're not talking about buying the guy a second monitor. We're talking about taking away his existing second monitor and giving it to someone in accounting.
That's a totally different situation from denying him an upgrade. Taking away his existing equipment and giving it to someone else is insulting (think Milton in Office Space), and there's really no way to make it make sense from a productivity management standpoint. Developers are technical people. They are motivated by fancy electronic gadgets that are, relatively speaking, remarkably cheap compared to the bonuses and expense accounts other workers demand.
If you take a developer's toys away and give them to the accountant, he's going to think you're being deliberately mean to punish him, and is probably going to sulk about it for a while. Or he'll think you're an idiot. Either way he'll resent you and lose faith in you and perform worse. If that was the manager's goal for some reason, fine, but if his goal was to save a few hundred bucks, he's making a false economy.