Actually long desks are no longer considered best practice. At my work, some devs have a lazy suzan, while others prefer a circle that they can pivot around to face the right computer.
I got one of those desks with a vertical pneumatic lift so I can stack the computers vertically in a rack and just raise/lower it so the right one is at eye height
At one point, before we virtualised everything, I had a custom desk built in an L-shape. Instead of a desk and a return, I had the refurbishment team put together a desk with two desks instead. It gave me two sets of drawers, two computer cubby holes and the gap was too small for the horrible keyboard adjustable shelf that kept hitting your knees, so they replaced it with a fixed surface instead.
People laughed.
Colleagues sremoveded.
Then they wanted one too.
Now I have a mobile lectern with an iMac clamped to it. Height adjustable, wheels, enough space for keyboard, trackpad and USB hub. I move around my office as the mood or light takes me.
I swear, overcoming fixed functional-ness is like a superpower when you can apply it.
I once shared a small office with a co-worker. I had the idea to move the desks away from the walls and place them back-to-back, diagonally, in the middle of the room. Other co-workers scoffed and remarked at how dumb and unconventional this looked. Then I explained that we each now had nearly full privacy from each other, much more personal space in our respective corners, no more glare from the window, and nobody could sneak up on us from the door anymore. Things got pretty quiet after that.
Reminds me of a scam call center person telling Kitboga “your IP address is tied to your house address. You don’t get a new one unless you move houses”
Early on in my career, I had to do a project in Python, together with another junior. Neither of us had any clue how to handle Python and he was on Windows, so, if I remember correctly, he had to install some dependencies from Pipenv, others from Conda, and his setup would break every two weeks in novel ways.
Eventually, we became quite good at installing a working setup, but correctly removing the broken setup was a pain. Often times, I thought that just reinstalling the whole OS would be quicker. 🫠
Every now and then a new hire comes along with a windows pc, every time they decide they want to try to get everything working on windows, after a week they give up.
Last time I checked, it was way easier in Windows to have a VM running Linux just for Python, than to get Python to reliably work nativelly in Windows.
Those people you see on LinkedIn with like 20 programming languages on their resume are really looking for a job just to pay off the debt of buying 20 computers
Many, many years ago I used to have two Wyse50 terminals, running split screens each with two parts. I did a lot of support on remote systems (via modem!) and I would have a session on a customer system, source code and running on our test system and internal stuff. I didn't have space for a third terminal.
At another job I had an office with a "U" shaped desk. I would spread printouts across half the "U" and swivel around between the computer and the printouts.
Technically yes, but the thermal load of putting all those computers inside the other computers is generally prohibitive, and image quality once you get 3 monitors deep in the tool chain is poor enough you have to start making the text bigger.