I switched to a netbook with emacs to see whether I could get by programming on it a couple weeks ago.  I've been using nothing but 1920x1200 screens (even on my laptops) for 10 years.<p>The secret for me (along with knowing the keys for managing bookmarks and multiple buffers well) is abusing virtual desktops.  With 6 or 9 virtual desktops, running emacs in one, documentation in one, web browser in one, IRC in one, terminal in one, etc. it's a breeze for me.  It's like using a tiling window manager.  I don't think I'm any less productive thanks to the screen size than I usually am.<p>I will say that I'm glad I'm not writing a more verbose language like C++, C# or Java (not an insult, I like C#) -- I can see how it could be much more painful than it is with Clojure and Scheme, which are relatively concise and encourage a little-independent-pieces-of-code sort of functional programming.