Comment Annoyance Factor (Score 1) 757
From personal experience (I'm a software engineer that works pretty long hours), I've found that it's more important to pick things with the hope of avoiding annoyance, rather than anticipating what I think would be nice in the future.
Things I've discovered:
1) You can't have too much desktop space.
I somehow scored an apple 30" cinema display for my desk at work-- and it's a godsend. I could care less about the coolness factor of it-- it's the resolution that helps me. If you're going to be running multiple terminals, debuggers, etc., then consider 1600x1200 and a 21" monitor a MINIMUM setup-- 1920x1440 on a 24" monitor is MUCH better, and obviously 2560x1600 on a 30" is amazing. You'll laugh when coworkers are hunting around their screens, minimizing window after window, to find something that is obfuscated. This one is often overlooked, but trust me... the added cost of a larger monitor is COMPLETELY worth it!
2) If you have unpadded arm rests, or your arms sit on your desk as your type, your elbows WILL hurt eventually.
Get an office chair with padded arm rests that isn't too soft in the seat or backrest areas-- also, lumbar support is helpful when sitting for a long time.
3) If you're doing development on a large project that is in a compiled language, get a dual CPU box, or use distcc (in the case of C/C++) with multiple machines.
You'll be amazed at how much faster "make -j4" is on a dual-CPU opteron than "make" is on a single-cpu opteron when recompiling your latest code change. This is an often overlooked workstation feature!
4) Get a machine with a fast hard drive
Just like #3 above-- compiling C/C++ projects sucks when you have a slow machine... get a machine with a fast hard drive. Ultra320 SCSI drives are excellent for this sort of thing, but I believe a high-end SATA drive would do well too.
Bottom line is-- you should use whatever editor, GUI tool, debugger, etc. that you know the best, and are most comfortable with. Your setup should allow you to use those same tools more efficiently and comfortably.
Things I've discovered:
1) You can't have too much desktop space.
I somehow scored an apple 30" cinema display for my desk at work-- and it's a godsend. I could care less about the coolness factor of it-- it's the resolution that helps me. If you're going to be running multiple terminals, debuggers, etc., then consider 1600x1200 and a 21" monitor a MINIMUM setup-- 1920x1440 on a 24" monitor is MUCH better, and obviously 2560x1600 on a 30" is amazing. You'll laugh when coworkers are hunting around their screens, minimizing window after window, to find something that is obfuscated. This one is often overlooked, but trust me... the added cost of a larger monitor is COMPLETELY worth it!
2) If you have unpadded arm rests, or your arms sit on your desk as your type, your elbows WILL hurt eventually.
Get an office chair with padded arm rests that isn't too soft in the seat or backrest areas-- also, lumbar support is helpful when sitting for a long time.
3) If you're doing development on a large project that is in a compiled language, get a dual CPU box, or use distcc (in the case of C/C++) with multiple machines.
You'll be amazed at how much faster "make -j4" is on a dual-CPU opteron than "make" is on a single-cpu opteron when recompiling your latest code change. This is an often overlooked workstation feature!
4) Get a machine with a fast hard drive
Just like #3 above-- compiling C/C++ projects sucks when you have a slow machine... get a machine with a fast hard drive. Ultra320 SCSI drives are excellent for this sort of thing, but I believe a high-end SATA drive would do well too.
Bottom line is-- you should use whatever editor, GUI tool, debugger, etc. that you know the best, and are most comfortable with. Your setup should allow you to use those same tools more efficiently and comfortably.
