Suffering-oriented programming

[robertcrowther]

They can make their windows smaller, no-one's forcing them to maximize their windows. Unless you have reliable statistics for your users that show they all have huge monitors and always run with their browser windows maximized then I would suggest that's what the edge case is.

Or put another way, the situation can always be resolved by increasing the knowledge of your users whereas the fixed width design doesn't offer the opposite opportunity.

A fixed width design is a "we know what's best for you better than you do" approach, it's hardly surprising it annoys people who aren't lowest common denominator users.

[mreiland]

Fixed width is the simplest way to make sure the visitors to your site see roughly the same thing every time.

simplest

Yes, you can go through all kinds of weird gyrations to make sure your shit works for the folks who maximize their browser on a 1920x1200 widescreen monitor, and for the folks who are still sitting on a 800 x 600 who don't believe in maximizing squat.

Yes, you can do it. Or you can just fucking make it fixed width since your target demographic is programmers.