12 reasons to have bigger screens for programming

a lot of people ask why programmers need or prefer to work on bigger screens.

in this article, we’re going to give you the 12 famous reasons that make programming love to use bigger screens or monitors.

1- runing multiple things at the same time

programmers run a lot of applications at the same time, normally they run:

  • The IDE where they program or write code
  • window in which they test an application
  • Web browser to check and make research
  • reading the email client or a boss to follow instructions
  • having an application chat to communicate with a client or boss

So you can imagine running these all applications with one single monitor especially if it is small. As a result, is useless and consumes a lot of fo time.

So a lot of programmers prefer to use bigger screen monitors in this way it helps them split the screen by 4 or at least 2 sides like in the image below.

iPad as a computer science student

2- Don’t have to go back and forth between tabs

The most important thing that makes programmers prefer to use one bigger screen reducing the time and effort that swapping or switching between tabs require.

You can imagine having 5 to 6 applications in which you run at the same time, and every while, you should switch one to another. It becomes a big mess.

Having one bigger screen or monitor allows you to split the screen up to 3 to 4 parts especially if you have these kinds of screens.

why programmers need or prefer to work on bigger screens.

So you don’t have any chance to get confused or open the wrong tab because most of the programmers face this problem on small screens.

3- You have a lot of space

when you have a bigger screen, obviously means you have a lot of space. As a result, allow you to be free and have many advantages.

for instance, if we pick video editing, a lot of programmers today make videos and do video editing. That is to say, having a wider or bigger monitor allows you to see a wider timeline of a video.

why programmers need or prefer to work on bigger screens.

The second example is if you have a lot of documents pages and all of them are important. So you can split a screen into 4 parts and read the documents at the same time without scoring going back and forth.

why programmers need or prefer to work on bigger screens.

4 – More comfortable than dual monitors

using one monitor is more comfortable than a dual monitor, for this reason, we see today a lot of programmers using ultra-widescreens instead of multiples monitors.

Many programmers today prefer to work on one bigger screen better than having 3 to 4 monitors because is more feasible.

To clarify having one big screen split into 2 parts is better than having one monitor on the left and one other on the right. and for many cases we find a lot of programmers use 2 monitors + a laptop.

your head becomes like a Radar that should turn left and right for the whole day. But without mentioning the people who use multiples monitors in all directions.

Many programmers after time suffer from neck strains which become very fatiguing and lower productivity. So this image will explain what we talk about.

why programmers need or prefer to work on bigger screens.

As a recommendation having 34 wider monitors is better than having two “29” monitors on in the right and one in the left.

5 – saving a time

The famous daily routine that programmers have is :

  1. write code or line
  2. compile code
  3. verify a code
  4. find a bug
  5. repeat again form scratch

This cycle is preparing 100 times a day or even more. So can you imagine doing this useless operation going back and forth between tabs, while you can do that staying on the same page.

Programmers spend 75% of their time fixing bugs and editing code, so using one bigger screen or monitor reduce a hell of a lot of time to spend swapping between tabs.

you can read this article 13 reasons why programmers hate using mouse

6 – Increase the focus

Having one bigger screen doesn’t require you to zoom like a small screen.

Coding is a domain that cares about a lot of details forgetting something like:

  • :
  • {
  • }
  • ]
  • [
  • ,
  • (
  • )

is enough to ruin your program and let you spend or waste a lot of time looking for the source error. Sometimes the compiler doesn’t recognize when is the problem or a bug, so you have to inspect it by yourself.

So in order to inspect a missing symbol or character you have to zoom. So you will lose a lot of time zooming in each paragraph alone trying to find where is the problem.

programer prefer to use a bigger screen to see clearly the character and don’t fatigue their eyes. Because that isn’t healthy and damages the eyes in the long run.

7 – for mulittasker is good

Some programmers are multitaskers than others, for example being a full-stack developer is very different from a single specialty like front-end developer or back-end developer.

Full-stack developers do what do a front-end developer and backend developer alone. So that requires running a lot of coding editors and having a lot of tasks to do at the same time.

Sometimes you can find a programmer opening 100 browsers tabes at the same time or opening a lot of windows. So it is impossible to see or determine which tab you should press into

8 – If you are programing in different technologies

For programmers who are doing mobile development applications working in both operating systems Android and iOS, they can run both operating systems on one screen.

They split a screen into parts:

  • One part for programming iOS apps
  • The second part for programming android apps

it gets better for them than using a MacBook laptop for programming in iOS while they should switch to a PC to run android studio programming android devices.

9 -H ave small desk for multiple monitors

sometimes having a dual monitor or multiple monitors create a problem for a programmer. In other words, having a dual monitor requires having a bigger or wider desktop which not all programmers have.

For this reason, programmers prefer to use a single one big screen for programming better multiples simply because they don’t have enough space for them.

10 – Have a poor graphic card laptop

In some cases, programmers can’t use multiple monitors because simply their laptops or hardware can’t drive multiple monitors.

For example, if we take a Macbook Air or a standard version MacBook pro, theses both version can drive more than 1 monitor. Wich means impossible to connect to them with more than one single monitor.

So they can’t run double monitors which forces a lot of programmers to choose 1 bigger screen, instead of looking to other solutions.

11 – bigger screens are great to compile graphic applications

For gaming programmers having one big screen is very important it is barely impossible to run a code on one screen and test it on another screen.

gaming programs choose one single screen and split into 2 sides:

  • one side for code or editing code
  • to see their animations and verify their code if is doing well

12 – Are good for gaming

There is no better experience than playing video games on the big screen, when programmers get done with their work, there is no better to play video games like:

  • league of legend
  • Skyrim
  • PUBG and etc

big screen gives a good and wide vision to play your favorite games and relief from stress.

Conclusion

this video is also useful for programmers who think to have bigger screens for more and further information.

yassin.ajanif

Yassin ajanif is a physics graduate and electromechanical engineer width more than 5 years in the field. My goal and my team are to share our experience to help you succeed in your career as a stem major. we talk about all tips, problems, and struggle STEM students face in their career and how to overcome them.