I switched from 4x 1080p displays for work (1 over 3) to a 4k, a 1080p, and the laptop screen.
The 1080p is mostly for screenshares in meetings. Since most people don’t have 4k monitors, sharing a 4k display in a meeting is a terrible experience for everyone else.
But I’d much rather have “one big display” than the same real estate on more screens. Much more flexible with layout. A 4k monitor is the same number of pixels as 4 1080p screens, and I’ve got one 43” monitor (TV) instead of four 23”.
Legitimately what is the ultrawide monitor that's angled on the desk below the main center monitor? I've been looking for one of these to use for music production
I think it's just two monitors are creatively mounted. They are just sandwiched between two desks. Ultrawide monitors are generally curved so I doubt that it's ultrawide.
Sometimes it's good to have one with your code, one with the running program and one with a browser looking stuff up. You can argue one or two more (like database model, expected output, ...) but you barely need a whole monitor for each. The photo is just pretentious and comically overdone
It tends to depend on your branch, though, and in some fields, you really don't need anything other than your code, because you're not testing anything before it's compiled anyway. For something like frontend development, on the other hand, having some extra screen space is a blessing, be it more monitors or just one bigger monitor, especially if you have the tools to easily manipulate the screen space, like automatic window tiling.
To take the frontend example further, when you have something like i3/DWN/sway or any other tiling windows manager (that's on Linux), you can easily set up more "desktops" (workspaces), divided into tiles like the browser window (to preview the changes), your editor (to make the raw changes), and the developer tools of the browser you're currently testing things on. Not like it's impossible to achieve the same with any other tool that lets you create virtual desktops, but the less time and brainpower you use on switching tabs/desktops/workplaces, which you achieve by always being able to access everything you need at a glance, just kinda helps you enter the flow state - you just dissolve into the process completely because you stare at everything you need all the time.
The more you need to look at, the more you gain with these setups. The frontend example from above is a rather simple scenario, which is not too likely in this era, because you're pretty much guaranteed to be using at least one framework, most likely with a live preview feature with real time output of the compiling results and errors. There's no shortage of windows to open, all of which will be relevant and useful to your current task.
Either that or put some non-work related crap on the side to switch to whenever you get mad because you don't get the result you wanted to.
Like if you're writing an essay on paper. You have your desk covered with a reference book or two, your draft version, working version, assignment, additional clarifications and notes, ... It would be such a hassle to put it all in one neat stack and search for whatever you need every time.
So programmers like to have the programming manual, design, notes, remarks from the customer, ... spread out over the screen(s) instead of switching back and forth every time.
one 1080p screen for code with 3-6 pages open simultaneously (approx 80x24 or 90x40 depending on whether the file tree is also open)
one 1080p screen for a terminal with 4-6 terminal sessions displayed (80x24)
one 1080p screen for reference documentation
or more 1080p screens for even more documentation as rabbit holes in documentation can go quite deep
...and that's before even more screens for monitoring services, CI status, rabbit holes in documentation, etc.
Then there's video chat. It gets really fun when someone asks "@inetknght, can you share your screen?" during a video call. Then I have to pick which screen gets shared and hope it's the right one. It would suck if they how many emails I ignore. I currently have 15,070 unarchived emails in my inbox spanning over a decade. I'll get to cleaning that inbox when the bug reports stop coming.
Plus, I sometimes run VMs fullscreen. It's best to do that on a dedicated monitor. Especially if there's multiple VMs running. Otherwise good luck finding the real desktop!
You just need 3 largish televisions, a small TV or monitor for the top, and stuff to mount each screen in that configuration. Your PC doesn't need to be that good unless you are doing something like gaming, just enough to run 4 1080p windows. Once you connect them, it's fairly easy to adjust the configuration in Windows to extend and rotate the monitors to make the setup work. Depending on how you get the televisions (you can buy them used, flat screen 1080p TVs have been popular for a long time and are relatively affordable) and how you decide to mount them, you can build this setup for only a couple hundred
I have a guy that does this. He puts so much effort in weird mobility solutions (ie: Dual monitors on a rolling table so he can work outside sometimes) or having a setup like this with TV's, monitors etc all cobbled together.
Would you be surprised to hear hes not the most organized or efficient.
For real. It's so much better to think about using the screen space you already have. People can do what they want, but I am happy with one screen, a tiling window manager, and workspaces. I can have a dozen or more things going on, and have it packed on a workspace. Fullscreen a window of I need to, then pop it back.
It's incredibly efficient. I see stuff like this, and I imagine what it's like to have text several feet away, screens covered by other screens, lots of neck fatigue, all the monitor borders... like it's truly bad. It feels like someone watched a lot of TV and "felt" that this was the best way to do it without trying it.
Butt I digress. It's not my setup. If they're efficient with it, more power to them.