Is the recent trend towards widescreen (16: 9) computer monitors a plus or minus for programmers?

Question

It almost got to the point that you can no longer buy a regular (4: 3) monitor. Almost everything is widescreen. This is fine for watching movies or TV, but is it good or bad for programming?

My initial thoughts on this are that widescreen screens are purely negative for programmers. Here are some of the disadvantages that I see:

Poor use of space

One of the disadvantages of widescreen displays that you can't argue with is that they provide low space usage for the number of pixels you get. For example, my Thinkpad, which I bought immediately before the widescreen infatuation, has a 15-inch monitor with a native resolution of 1600 x 1200. The new 15.4-inch ThinkPads work no more than 1680 x 1050. So (if you do the math), you get fewer pixels in a wider (but not shorter) package. With desktop monitors, you pay the price in terms of the workspace used. Two 1680 x 1050 monitors simply occupy more of your table than two 1600 x 1200 monitors (assuming an equal point pitch).

More scroll

If you compare the 1680 x 1050 monitor with the 1600 x 1200 monitor, you get 80 extra pixels in width, but 150 less pixels. Decreasing the height means you are losing about 11 lines of code. What you can see on the screen at a time and more scrolling, you need to do. It harms performance, maybe not dramatically, but insidiously.

Less space for wide panels

Widescreen displays also mean that you lose space for the wide, but short panels common in a programming environment. For example, if you use Visual Studio, your code window will be much shorter when viewing the search results, task list, or error list (all of which I often use). This does not mean that the 80 pixels of extra width that you get with a widescreen screen will never be useful, but I try to keep my lines of code short, so looking at more lines would be more valuable to me than looking at smaller long lines .

What do you think?

Do you agree / disagree? Are you using one or more widescreen monitors for development? What permission do you use for each? Have you ever missed the height of a traditional 4: 3 monitor? Could you complain if your monitors were one inch narrower but two inches taller?

Answer 1

1) Rotating monitors.

This negates almost all the problems you describe. Most of the people I work with have 19-inch widescreen monitors, and usually one or both have been rotated upright, giving them more room for everything.

2) Toolbars.

Many IDEs these days have the ability to move toolbars to either side of the screen. I believe that I open them more with my widescreen monitors than without, including search results or errors.

3) Tabs.

The wider the monitor, the more tabs you will see. It's good.

4) Large monitors.

You can get the same vertical space as you could before, but you just need to get a larger monitor. I switched to a widescreen 24-inch screen to maintain a height of 1200 pixels for my main display at home, and I do not regret it. I look forward to a 30 minute future so that I can have at least 1600 pixels in height. Ideally, this would even allow me to open two editor windows on one screen (and with windows 7, which would be easy).

5) Tough luck.

Widescreen monitors are here to stay. Our eyes are better able to absorb more information horizontally than vertically, so this transition will ultimately benefit humanity. Sit back, enjoy the ride!

Answer 2

That's why you buy widescreen monitors that you can orient vertically for your desktop.

I don’t see the problem really - I get a full-sized keyboard on my laptops and enough space to put two editors next to my desktops.

Answer 3

It is much easier to scroll vertically than horizontally.

Answer 4

Yes, widescreen monitors are worse for development.

You need at least 1024 pixels across, so your screen will fit your users.

After that, you will need as many lines of code as possible on your screen.

You can get a lot of code if you take a widescreen monitor and orient it in portrait mode, but then you need a type anti-aliasing version that supports vertical subpixels that are not available on Windows.

Well, that sucks, but at least monitors are cheap. Buy two!

Answer 5

We have new Dell computers, and I noticed that they are even shorter and wider than the last set. Cynical, I think this is just a way for monitor manufacturers to make more monitors of a certain nominal size from the same size of LCD material. This is simple math - if you keep the same diagonal, but reduce the height of the rectangle, you get rectangles with a smaller area. In other words, with shorter and wider monitors you can keep the same diagonal length, but reduce the area. Damn it, people!

Answer 6

One of the advantages of widescreen mode is that you can easily open two code files next to each other. For example, in Visual Studio and using TestDriven.NET, I usually tested my unit tests in one group of tabs, and the test code opens in another group of tabs. Thus, I can work with the test code in the left pane, but I can readily perform tests so that I can right-click and run it - no need to change to another tab first.

Answer 7

I use a Dell 24 ”monitor at home with Windows 7. When I want to fake dual screens, I just pop two windows next to each other with the wonderful new Windows 7. snap features. Done.

Answer 8

I like the wider Big LCD format. In fact, I fell for them before I retired. I had a lot of eye strain with a 17-inch CRT. My optometrist suggested an LCD at eye level. When I got the 17-inch LCD and was able to lift it with a few books, I was able to set it so that the line of sight was almost straight. This change almost eliminated eye strain. As for coding, I kind of work side-by-side now-in-a-day setup. half of the property is for code, and the other half is for reference and design documentation. I launch the taskbar on the right side of the screen. Got more space to the side than at the bottom. I don’t know what I will do with two monitors, but both of my current LCDs are just terrain, unless I can find a mounting system for them. No need now.

-BezantSoft

Answer 9

With 16: 9 monitors, the PIVOT function (rotates up to 90 degrees) is MUST use any extra pixels of width.

But the best thing about the current trend is the PRICE monitor segment, which is falling so fast that two monitors in vertical positions make things just perfect :)

Answer 10

If your methods are usually short (as it should be), and if you have good tools for navigating your code (e.g. ReSharper), vertical scrolling is not a big deal to a large extent.

I adapted to the widescreen format and found that I prefer it for development. We have a mixture in our office (of course, all with two screens), and I find it frustrating when I have to work on a machine with narrow monitors, although they have more vertical space.

I can have the Visual Studio tool palette on the left, the Solution Explorer on the right (and make the Solution Explorer wide enough to see subfolders and long file names), and they still have a lot of room for code. Even if the search results and the ReSharper test runner are docked to the bottom, I do not consider it limited, although sometimes I change the size of the lower dock.