If I'm in full-on development mode, I like to have at least one separate screen, though for more casual maintenance stuff I'm happy on a laptop.
I seem to recall DHH (Basecamp/Rails) said in the past he frequently developed on an 11" MacBook at some point, only using a monitor when sat at a desk, so I guess it's doable.
I do all my dev and other work on a 13" MacBook Air and have done for years. I haven't had a desktop monitor since my last gig with a client in the City.
Yes, the ergonomics suck relatively speaking, especially now that my eyesight is getting worse with age (and from falling off a Segway!), but it means that I can work anywhere and my desk at home can be tiny.
I don't really get this rationale. You're basically saying that you know that you are hurting yourself, but on the plus side, you are able to be hurting yourself anywhere.
I mean that I am a real developer still (and have been one of the world's relatively best paid), and 13" works fine for me to get stuff done. Here I am 200 miles from home in a hotel right now with all my tools. No monitor lugging required.
Yes, laptop ergonomics aren't ideal, but neither is life. There are always trade-offs. And I have some colourful language memories from earlier sysadmin jobs getting horrific shocks while lugging other users' colour CTRs around for them...
I'd suggest that anyone who thinks that they "need" a huge monitor as opposed to "prefers" should considers needs vs wants.
If I was living in a van, and I'm a tiny house fan BTW, a large monitor would NOT be on MY 'needs' list.
Another commenter made a good point about more screen space being more distraction, and debuggers being a big part of that as an example of not solving the real problem. Given that you only have a few cm^2 of full-definition vision anyway, you have to manage that one way or another. More pixels is not necessary that way.
The screen-space-as-a-distraction argument sounds to me more like an excuse for not being able to keep one's attention on the task at hand. If a person can not resist filling the screen space up with useless clutter, it's that person's problem, not the problem of having the screen space. Someone else is able to use that extra screen space productively.
All in all it seems a "I can't have it, so I convinced myself that having it would be bad, so I don't miss it as much" self-deception.
Having (a) tried it various ways, and (b) having complete freedom as to how to organise my work life, I believe that keeping it small and simple and focussed works well on balance, at least for me. And it may work for others.
You do know that humans (other than yourself, maybe!) are not perfectly rational creatures? B^> Oscar Wilde's quote "I can resist anything except for temptation" is an astute observation.
It's not about being rational or not, it's about discipline (or perhaps about ADHD for some people). I can fall for many temptations, but when I want something done (either as a hobby, or at work), I have no problems concentrating on what I need to be doing. And having extra screen space often helps.
Depending on the task, of course - there are times when all I need is one 80x25 terminal, and then there are times when having several as large as possible windows open side by side helps a lot, e.g. when analyzing logs from several cluster nodes.
I love the Wilde quote, by the way, I don't think I've seen this one before. :)
I seem to recall DHH (Basecamp/Rails) said in the past he frequently developed on an 11" MacBook at some point, only using a monitor when sat at a desk, so I guess it's doable.