I wish workspaces had shortcuts like alt-tab and superkey-<number> only look at your current workspace.
If I'm on workspace 2, and my superkey-1 corresponds to an application that is only open on workspace 1, i don't want to switch to workspace 1, i want to open a new window of the application in workspace 2.
Similarly, if I'm in workspace 2, I don't want alt tab to show me applications open in workspace 1.
To me, these behaviors make workspaces inadequate for context switching.
This can be done, depending on the window manager.
In my awesome window manager setup, super+tab always toggle the last 2 windows on the current tag (workspace). It's also possible to map super+1 to make an application be part of the current workspace (or open a new instance there). In this model, a window can be part of more than 1 workspace at the same time.
If I'm on workspace 2, and my superkey-1 corresponds to an application that is only open on workspace 1, i don't want to switch to workspace 1, i want to open a new window of the application in workspace 2.
Similarly, if I'm in workspace 2, I don't want alt tab to show me applications open in workspace 1.
To me, these behaviors make workspaces inadequate for context switching.