[dunham]

When I'm writing code, I need a proper keyboard and a nice, big desktop monitor (preferably two). I still use a laptop, but it's hooked to a keyboard/monitor for the majority of my work.

When I do have to work directly on the laptop, I find it much less comfortable and slower. This is due to both screen real-estate and ergonomics. Your mileage may vary.

At the moment I'm primarily doing iOS and Java development (for a GWT web app), so I'm dealing with Eclipse, XCode, the iOS simulator, and a few browser windows. The secondary screen tends to be where I park reference material, IM, and sometimes logs. Eclipse likes to have a lot of pixels, but is a necessary evil to make Java development bearable.

How does Google deal with Java IDE's? Remote desktop?

[codeka]

This wouldn't be the primary development device. This is what you take to meetings and on the train. Googlers all have pretty beefy development workstations for the "real" work.