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Ask HN: Would you be interested in a video commentaries of open source project

3 points by chegra 16y ago

I'm trying to gauge if anybody would be interested in video commentaries of open source projects. I think one of the barriers to entry to contributing to a open source project is the time it takes to understand how things are currently structured. Also, it can be used as a training tool for neophyte to understand how to implement a particular piece of code and to show expressions of a given standard. Also would you be willing to pay for such a service

icey 16y ago
Could you clarify what you mean by a video commentary? An example might be the best - video isn't needed; maybe just a blurb that goes like "An average episode would cover an open-source project from the perspective of the things a developer needs to do to get started" or "The episodes would revolve around the technical details of a project". It could potentially be interesting, but it really depends on how it's done.
- chegra84 16y ago
  I want it to cover both. Like a high level overview of what is needed to get started and then an in-depth explanation of the code. At this point it is ideation, so I'm open to suggestion on how it could be done and what would be of interest to developers.
philwelch 16y ago
Video's a pretty bad medium, but I'd buy a book that extensively documented an open source project I wanted to get a better grasp of.
- chegra 16y ago
  Hmm... Why you say this? What I was thinking is not just have one video but like a break down of the project and explain each part using a video. Then facilities for interactions like comments on parts of the video that wasn't clear.
  - philwelch 16y ago
    Books are more dense, more random-access, and you can go through them at your own pace. They're also easier to understand (assuming literacy) and less disruptive to people around the user. It can be nice to have videos going over difficult parts of a book--working through my graph theory textbook would be pretty obnoxious without going to lecture--but I would really only use them as supplementary material, not the main material.

3 points by chegra 16y ago

icey 16y ago

Could you clarify what you mean by a video commentary? An example might be the best - video isn't needed; maybe just a blurb that goes like "An average episode would cover an open-source project from the perspective of the things a developer needs to do to get started" or "The episodes would revolve around the technical details of a project". It could potentially be interesting, but it really depends on how it's done.

chegra84 16y ago
I want it to cover both. Like a high level overview of what is needed to get started and then an in-depth explanation of the code. At this point it is ideation, so I'm open to suggestion on how it could be done and what would be of interest to developers.

philwelch 16y ago

Video's a pretty bad medium, but I'd buy a book that extensively documented an open source project I wanted to get a better grasp of.

chegra 16y ago
Hmm... Why you say this? What I was thinking is not just have one video but like a break down of the project and explain each part using a video. Then facilities for interactions like comments on parts of the video that wasn't clear.
- philwelch 16y ago
  Books are more dense, more random-access, and you can go through them at your own pace. They're also easier to understand (assuming literacy) and less disruptive to people around the user. It can be nice to have videos going over difficult parts of a book--working through my graph theory textbook would be pretty obnoxious without going to lecture--but I would really only use them as supplementary material, not the main material.