Depends on the work, but I've found that all my dotfiles (including .ssh and .screenrc and .vimrc) linked into a directory on Dropbox, as well as my Development directory (containing all my local copies of git repos) goes a long way toward achieving this.

I _really_ didn't want to build a computer, and the iMac is _substantially_ faster than the equivalent-costing MBP (and also frees me up to travel with an Air).

It's a useful tradeoff, I think.

Dropbox probably does take care of the biggest issues. But I really do mean absolutely zero. The reason I quit using an external monitor is that I'd organize my windows differently on it and then have trouble readjusting to the laptop. Especially when lines of code started wrapping that didn't wrap when I wrote them!

I actually started writing shorter lines of code once I got my large external monitor. I've found it's really convenient to set my editor to take up 50% of the screen vertically and have either a command line or browser on the other half of the screen (and reference windows on the laptop screen). In this setup, the editor is actually slightly narrower and taller than when full-screen on my laptop.

Switching between screen sizes really made me realize the importance of making sure all my code breaks at column 80, which makes it easier to read in terminals, on other people's screens, etc. as well. Good practice, I think.

I try to avoid line wrapping, but SQL statements usually force me to have some >80 char lines.

I used to have a problem with readjusting window sizes and positions between the laptop and my 24" display until I discovered full-screen apps in the recent OS X. Now I just run the text editor full-scren on both

I also hated to have all my windows flying around when I would (un)plug my MacBook Pro from external devices... Some time ago I discovered Stay (http://cordlessdog.com/stay/) and now I have no more problems with that. It is great, you can define position of windows for all your different setups (profiles). In my case I mostly have two setups, at office (where I work most of my time) I plug my MacBook Pro to an external display and when I am at home I work directly on the MacBook and sometimes I connect it to another external display.

I am a big fan of being able to just work whenever I want on my computer... but I also am extremely big fan of plugging it to external displays and use ergonomic devices, and I try to use them as much as I can. At my office I use a Kinesis Freestyle and a trackball, and am very happy since I started using it. We spend so much time in these "positions" that we should minimize possibilities of having problems and be confortable... at the end we want to keep doing this for long time ;)

Sad but true.

State retention/replication is among the biggest hassles of my multiple computing environments.

OTOH, it's also a pretty persuasive argument to leave work at work at the end of the day.

ssh dev

tmux attach

workon project

My shell work isn't the issue. Or rather in isolation it's not. I'll run upwards of 40-50 shell sessions (on multiple hosts, with screen sessions on many of them). The net state of all of those sessions, including spatial relations between shells and color coordination (helpful for state recognition) is the hard thing to replace. Note: it's not that I carefully choose the colors of all shells, but I do have a couple of scripts that will kick out terminals in either lighter or darker shades (lighter == remote terminals, darker == local) to indicate stuff whose state I want to specifically register.

Full desktop sessions and browser state are the big ones.

I might be able to look at NX or another remote desktop solution, but those would be at best poor substitutes.

We don't all work solely in the command line which makes the advice worthless.

Only some people work solely in the command line, therefore that advice is worthless? I don't follow your logic here.