I've never used two monitors at the same time before, what's so great about it?<p>Also, what's a good way to try working with dual monitors before I go out an drop $200?
When I work, I like to have several editor windows open, and the documentation (usually browser) open. On the first screen is where I have the editor window where I'm actually typing stuff in; on the second screen I have all the reference stuff that I can just glance at.
To be honest, it can be tricky. I had a tough time with two monitors, initially. I would always put my irc client and instant messenger clients on the second monitor, along with whatever documentations, editors, etc that i needed. I would distract myself by always glancing over at irc. What I ended up doing to solve this was rotating my "main" monitor vertically, and use it exclusively for my main code editing window. I'd reserve the second window for documentation. I have to maximize both windows otherwise ill just get distracted by the other monitor, again.<p>It takes some getting used to, but I definitely get use out of the second one. Although, I'd be fine with one still. I'm a furious alt-tabber either way. ;)
When you maximise a window, it takes up the entire screen. In the case of multiple monitors, it takes up the entire screen of the current monitor it is currently displayed in. Multiple monitors are therefore a hardware method of window management without having to manually resize them.<p>In Windows 7 you can now dock windows to the left or right. This has worked really well for me on a single 24'' at 1900x1200 resolution. In the past this was not possible out of the box.
Cheap way to expand screen real estate.<p>I find myself diffing 3 files a lot. And these files are 80 characters fixed-width. So to have the three window diff in vim means I would need at least 3 * 80 + 2 = 242 character width, and that doesn't fit on most monitors.<p>(Nowadays I use a 27" iMac, which runs 2560x1440 natively, so I really dont need [or use] a second monitor, but the argument still applies)
If you never have to move a window out of the way in the course of what you're doing, then for you it's indeed not so great. But I think it's pretty common to do this.<p>Also, I've worked on projects where Visual Studio or Eclipse took up the entirety of one screen, and the application in running form took up the entirety of another.