When I first started programming, I always wanted multiple monitors. "Real programmers use more than one monitor," I read somewhere. It took a while for me to save up for a second monitor. At first, I thought it was amazing, but soon enough I felt like I needed bigger monitors. Two twenty-something-inch monitors just weren't cutting it anymore. And that's how I ended up buying bigger monitors.
Twice the space, twice the windows. Coding on one screen while having documentation open on another. A dream. But shortly after, I read somewhere that real programmers loved ultrawide monitors. More space for side-by-side windows: email, Slack, Teams, terminal, editor, Spotify. We need to see everything and see it all at once! It seemed like the right thing to do. And that's how I swapped my main monitor for an ultrawide.
Now I was ready to become a 10x developer. Plenty of screen real estate, nothing could stop me. Except for that slight color difference between the two monitors, which was a bit annoying. Actually, that wasn't the only thing bothering me. The monitors were different models, so the bezels didn't match. The monitor arm holding them was wobbly. Two power outlets and two HDMI cables. This lack of harmony was ruining everything and keeping me from becoming the dev I was destined to be. There was no way I could shine like this. I saw somewhere that multiple monitors were a thing of the past. Real modern programmers used just one screen. A big 42-inch 4K OLED TV seemed like the obvious solution. Plenty of room for screen splitting, forgetting alt+tab even exists, infinite contrast, and hi-def code. That was all that was missing. And that's how I swapped my monitors for a TV.
Everything finally felt right. I installed Arch Linux and Hyprland. Everything open at once, on a single screen. The ultimate programmer's paradise. The 10x developer myth was about to become reality. Multiple windows dynamically dancing across a massive screen. At first, I felt invincible, but soon it started to make me anxious. I began to realize that seeing everything at once actually made me more unproductive and anxious. The problem was never the number or size of the screens, but rather believing in the false sense that I can process that much information all at once.
No more multiple notifications and screens in my face. I want one thing at a time. I ditched dynamic tiling and now I only use one fullscreen app at a time, each on its own workspace. Zed on one, Godot on another, browser on another, and so on. No false sense of multitasking, no everything in the same place at the same time.
I didn't become a 10x developer, but I found some peace.