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I agree. Maybe it's because I only build server side and desktop apps (i.e. no games, medical imaging software, multimedia apps, etc.)
Also, saying 24" (or 30") without specifying the resolution doesn't make any sense to me. I happen to love my single 24" 1920x1280 Dell LCD.
/ravi
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In my case it works perfectly and it is much more comfortable in normal applications as you can have the help system on one screen and the developing environment in the other one (speaking about two screens).
But In some cases, it is almost impossible to debug without at least two screens:
- I'm using one specific application that allows me to program a PLC that is PC based. That editor/programming environment allows me to place breakpoints.
- I'm using the VC++ to make the GUI of the application the operator of the machine will use.
- I need to be able to view the changes in the GUI and into the PLC app and into the code at the same time in order to be able to test everything just before testing into the real machine and risk to crash something.
In that case I can promise you it is much more easy to do it with multiple displays.
PS: moreover the way the data is shared between the VC++ app and the PLC app hangs the VC++ editor and the PLC editor if too much time has passed in the debugging stage. Something about the real time needs of the PLC system...
I AGREE WITH YOU IN THE FACT THAT IT IS A FALLACY: it is not mandatory, but it is not only a matter of being a wannabe "into the matrix style" (at least not in all the cases), in my case for example, I use it and I take a lot of advantage from that.
I've been a long time programming alone here and all the help has been welcome... You should try it, I'm sure that you will think "why on earth I've not used it before"... I've gained a lot of time.
As an example:
When you program, you don't have to remember the variable name that you must access in the PLC app as you can see it while you are writing the C++ code...
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Yup, I don't disagree with you at all, someone else brought up a very similar case and as I said before there are always edge conditions that don't disprove for the majority of the cases. I fully understand that and I would do similar in your case but I would shut off the other monitors when not using them for that special case while I was working as they would be too distracting.
"It's so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and then don't say it."
-Sam Levenson
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I agree with you but multiple screens very seldom are a necessity for programmers (I like sci-fi games too  ). I use 3 20.1" wide screens at the office (and i'm gonna add a fourth one soon) but i'm working on mechanical and engineer software like Tekla structures (Xsteel), AutoCAD and some other common apps at the same time. Multiple monitors although laghable by many, can really relief you of pain, stress and boost your productivity to the roof.
My boss although reluctant to invest to them is now starting to see things from a whole different perspective as his requests are being served faster and more efficiently.
I can understand how that may confuse people as it can get a while to get used to but in the end it will make them work better, especially if their job requires fast response and continuous interaction with many software applications at a time.
Cheers ....
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micmanos wrote: especially if their job requires fast response and continuous interaction with many software applications at a time.
Most programmers are fooling themselves if they think continually interrupting what they're working on to go to something else is more productive than focusing on one task at a time. I say most because there are some very (extremely) rare cases where the task at hand of programming involves more than one screen but it's so rare as to be firmly the exception rather than the rule. Every modern study of human computer interaction bears out that you can't be productive when presented with too many different things to work on at the same time.
"The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do."
- Walter Bagehot
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I am constantly referencing an object model and/or data model while coding...it's nice to have them visible on screens, rather than ALT-TABing between them.
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I agree with what you say.
We cannot multi-task as a programmer because writing code requires ones highly focused attention. I do a little programming on occasion and i can relay to your point of view. Programming however is only a small part of what computers are used for today. Most companies use software and computers to run their business rather than be the business. This means that information & data handling very often require manual interaction between different apps and that's where the ease of having a large work area is of use. Now, multiple screens have the advantage of splitting the desktop and using more than 1 maximized apps so it's mostly personal preference.
My conclusion (not expecting anyone to relay though) is that being in this forum, certainly means that most of us are involved in programming as the major work in our jobs but compared to what the rest of the world uses computers for, i'd say that we're the exception.
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Supposedly MS did a survey just a few years back that dual monitors boosted productivity for an average user by 15%. And I can see why, most users have difficulty dealing with overlapping windows and just maximise the apps window to avoid confusion. Two monitors, two maxmised applications, big productivity boost.
But I've also met plenty of people who hate multiple monitors, they seem to be of the "Where's my teletype" brigade.
I am convinced that lobotomising users will make little to no difference.
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You need your computer box outfitted with neon's, and a glowing keyboard before your at the helm of a spaceship... duh... everyone knows that!
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When an application crashes, the keyboard need to emit a shower of sparks. Instead of a BSOD, the monitors just explode.
We are a big screwed up dysfunctional psychotic happy family - some more screwed up, others more happy, but everybody's psychotic joint venture definition of CP
blog: TDD - the Aha! | Linkify!| FoldWithUs! | sighist
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I started out on 24x80 and 16x64 ascii display terminals. Multiple screens at current high resolutions provides a flexibility I could not even have imagined in 1976. We've come a long way.
That said, I do have to admit that, being a creature of habit, my tendency is all too often to do program editing in a command window using VI! 
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My first dual monitor experience was on my 286 - when upgrading from Hercules MGA to VGA. (Yay!) They worked at different memory adresses, and luckily monitors weren't compatible, and extra luckily, Turbo Pascal 5 supported that: I could have the debugger on one monitor, and the applicaiton run on the other. It was marvelous!
Actually took me a while to realize that it wasn't great only back then, and I actually could afford it easily (and stop envying all the guys with e-peen monitor setups )
We are a big screwed up dysfunctional psychotic happy family - some more screwed up, others more happy, but everybody's psychotic joint venture definition of CP
blog: TDD - the Aha! | Linkify!| FoldWithUs! | sighist
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I like not having to use punch-cards. After that everything is gravy.
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geoffs wrote: being a creature of habit, my tendency is all too often to do program editing in a command window using VI!
I do that too, and I am not a creature oh habit. Worked with various IDEs, and came to conclusion that none of them beats vi(m) for code editing tasks.
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I had to fix some problem which occure on a program with multiple screens. If the prog was on the secondary screen minimized, and got restored on the first one. 
I like me second screen a lot: I can read the help or compare bigger chunks of code.
Greetings from Germany
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I have been using multple screens for about 8years now (i Think, actually my first forray was back in 1994 when i attached a Hurcules mono monitor to me vga based system and used it to show debug information) my first setup was a 20" + 17" crt. I have now progressed to 2 x 20" lcd's.
I have found dual monitors for programming to be a great boon as I can run Visual studio full screen on one monitor and have the help, firefox (with Code project of course!) on the other and when debugging i would have the application under debug on the second monitor which is quire handy esp if you need to see the what the application does when stepping through code.
The other senario that I find makes dual monitors usefull is if you need to refer to other source code files while editing another, here you can have a second text editor (e.g. Ultra Edit or Notepad++) running on the second monitor.
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Robin Imrie wrote: I have found dual monitors for programming to be a great boon as I can run Visual studio full screen on one monitor and have the help, firefox (with Code project of course!) on the other
Nope, not convinced that it's better to clutter up your desk and get a sore neck because you can't be bothered to press alt-tab on the keyboard sorry. 
Robin Imrie wrote: on the other and when debugging i would have the application under debug on the second monitor which is quire handy esp if you need to see the what the application does when stepping through code.
*That's* the classic argument for multiple screens and in my experience it's required about once a decade to actually do that and there are other ways to do it.
"The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do."
- Walter Bagehot
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Been using dual screens for development for nearly ten years now. The telling moment is when I have to use my laptop when I'm out of my office - back to a single small screen (albeit widescreen) and I really find things take longer to do - forever using alt-tab to switch.
It's really a question of screen real-estate - more is better, which is how we've progressed over the years. Whether it's big screens or multiple monitors is a choice of how you achieve it.
I prefer multi-monitor because it's easier to arrange windows - maximize app A in one, then app B in the other is easy. Plus you get more pixel real-estate for your money with multi-monitor - two 17" screens will cost less than one 24". Twice 1280x1024 is 2.6M pixels, but 1920x1200 is only 2.3m pixels.
I keep email, help files, documents e.g. data I'm working on, on the right-hand screen (the one I'm typing in now) and Visual Studio in the left hand one.
'Howard
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I (and most research studies) find that switching mental context while working is a horrible killer of productivity, having your email pop up at your visibly on one screen while working on another or simply seeing out of the corner of your eye something unrelated to what you're working on is a killer of productivity, besides being common sense when you think about it, it's been confirmed in many studies, there's no doubt any more about it.
It may be what you're used to and that's fine but don't for a second think you are more productive with it.
One very large monitor with only apps running that are absolutely required for the job at hand and all windows maximized is the de-facto most productive way to work.
"The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do."
- Walter Bagehot
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Some people can play music, have 10 people screaming at each other in the background, be in the middle of an earthquake while the garbage man is doing his thing outside and a car alarm going off and still not get distracted.
But then some people are more easily distracted than others.
I use 2x24 at work and home and been dualing it up since it was first introduced in windows 95 (or was it 98 god I'm getting old).
Todd Smith
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Depends, if email is your companies primary communication tool, and not answering it within allotted time frames causes you to get penalized in your wallet, you'll realize that being interrupted is a good thing.
Not to mention, when again, email is the primary communication tool, you want the person at the other end to see when you send them an email, so you can get the response and finish your work.
And why do you argue that what's on the other monitor is "unrelated to what you're working on" when nearly everyone here has mentioned the other monitor is often used for reference material which IS related to what they are working on.
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GibbleCH wrote: Depends, if email is your companies primary communication tool, and not answering it within allotted time frames causes you to get penalized in your wallet, you'll realize that being interrupted is a good thing.
Email *is* our primary communication tool. I shut it down for periodic intervals, get work done, then move to email and focus on it for an interval. No man can fully do a good job at any task when interrupted at it and programming is perhaps at the top of the lists of all tasks that requires absolute concentration to be effective at it.
GibbleCH wrote: And why do you argue that what's on the other monitor is "unrelated to what you're working on" when nearly everyone here has mentioned the other monitor is often used for reference material which IS related to what they are working on.
That's a fallacy and they all know it. Aside from a couple of absolute requirements for multiple monitors which are edge conditions and don't apply to the vast majority of programmers the most common reasons given were debugging and referring to reference material. Debugging is absolutely not required to have multiple monitors with the *extremely* rare exception of debugging a UI control while running the app, i.e. looking at windows messages etc. Something which I've personally done without any problem on a single monitor many times over many years and I don't buy it as being a real need at all. Looking at reference material? That's what alt tab is for.
If I ran a shop full of programmers you can be certain I'd ban multiple monitors as a huge waste of productivity, not my opinion only but something backed up in multiple studies regarding context switching. In the end except in rare cases it absolutely boils down to an affectation.
"The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do."
- Walter Bagehot
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You'd ban them? Wow, jump to extremes much?
"If you ran" being the key words. You're also mixing "context switching" with how people have been explaining they use multiple screens. If you have to repeatedly Alt-Tab to get the info, you're not context switching, you're jumping hoops to do your job.
If you're answering questions from a textbook in a workbook do you read the question, Open the workbook place it on top of the text book, and then keep lifting the one you need to read/or write in and placing it on top? Of course not, you set them BESIDE one another because you are working with both at once.
You could argue that you could tile the documents on your computer, but then how is that any different than extending your desktop. It's not. It's the exact same thing.
You make it sound like an extra monitor is going to break a budget. You can get a decent 19" for $200-250. Heck, that's one toner cartridges. And the LCD will outlast it easily.
If you don't like it, that's one thing, but claiming it's a waste of productivity because of research is only valid if the research you are using actually is refuting what you claim it is. And it isn't. Context switching is not the same as looking at reference material or other pertinent screens.
Not to mention, it's kind of nice when you can get a database/object model to fit on your screen AND still be readable so you can actually digest it as a whole (or at least enough pertinent tables to be useful).
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