The Programmers Bill of Rights

1. Every programmer shall have two monitors. With the crashing prices of LCDs and the ubiquity of dual-output video cards, you’d be crazy to limit your developers to a single screen. The productivity benefits of doubling your desktop are well documented by now. If you want to maximize developer productivity, make sure each developer has two monitors.
2. Every programmer shall have a fast PC. Developers are required to run a lot of software to get their jobs done: development environments, database engines, web servers, virtual machines, and so forth. Running all this software requires a fast PC with lots of memory. The faster a developer’s PC is, the faster they can cycle through debug and compile cycles. You’d be foolish to pay the extortionist prices for the extreme top of the current performance heap– but always make sure you’re buying near the top end. Outfit your developers with fast PCs that have lots of memory. Time spent staring at a progress bar is wasted time.
3. Every programmer shall have their choice of mouse and keyboard. They are the essential, workaday tools we use to practice our craft and should be treated as such.
4. Every programmer shall have a comfortable chair. Let’s face it. We make our livings largely by sitting on our butts for 8 hours a day. Why not spend that 8 hours in a comfortable, well-designed chair? Give developers chairs that make sitting for 8 hours not just tolerable, but enjoyable. Sure, you hire developers primarily for their giant brains, but don’t forget your developers’ other assets.
5. Every programmer shall have a fast internet connection. Good programmers never write what they can steal. And the internet is the best conduit for stolen material ever invented. I’m all for books, but it’s hard to imagine getting any work done without fast, responsive internet searches at my fingertips.
6. Every programmer shall have quiet working conditions. Programming requires focused mental concentration. Programmers cannot work effectively in an interrupt-driven environment. Make sure your working environment protects your programmers’ flow state, otherwise they’ll waste most of their time bouncing back and forth between distractions.