4 ms·

That's so odd. I can't imagine coding with an audience. Half of the time I'm not even coding; at work I'm often writing up little tests in Jupyter to make sure

by ben509 7y ago

That's so odd. I can't imagine coding with an audience. Half of the time I'm not even coding; at work I'm often writing up little tests in Jupyter to make sure things do what I think they do. (Granted, this is porting straight Python to Numba, which is subtly different and has a lot of limitations.) Has anyone done this? Is it easier to focus or harder?

charlzz 7y ago
It's probably like singing. Once you get used to an audience, you can probably manage. Those that can't handle it likely quit.
larrywright 7y ago
I’ve never streamed my coding, but I have enjoyed watching people on Twitch or Youtube do it. It’s different than typical programming tutorials I’ve seen on Youtube - I dislike those as I’d rather read a blog post because it’s easier to skim and go back and re-read things to make sure you understand them. Watching someone build a thing live is different though. It’s unedited, you can see how they work and how they approach a problem, how they handle troubleshooting, what their development environment looks like. I don’t watch them in order to learn how to do a thing (although I almost always learn something), but it’s more like watching over the shoulder of a developer as they build something.
- duxup 7y ago
  >It’s different than typical programming tutorials I’ve seen on Youtube - I dislike those Oh man me too, I've avoided live coding because of it but your post makes me think I should give some of it a watch.
  - larrywright 7y ago
    There are few things worse than a Youtube video that should have been a blog post - I’ve encountered plenty of programming ones, but also lots of technical how-to things that just needed to be a few hundred words of text and some screenshots. I suspect it’s easier to monetize Youtube videos these days, so that’s why people are doing it. As for live coding, it really is a completely different experience, and I expect something different from it. My only complaint is that it’s often difficult to find them - Twitch is very much oriented towards gaming, so finding the coders there is like finding the needle in a haystack. Hopefully Belly.io can help (can’t tell since it appears to have been hugged to death).
    - duxup 7y ago
      >There are few things worse than a Youtube video that should have been a blog post - Yeah we're totally on the same page there. I want to read, reread, and reread (i'm bad at reading comprehension) when it comes to these youtube videos that should be blogs. I'm a bit of a n00b and constantly looking for some good patterns or such, live coding might help but understand it a bit better than finding a monolith app as seeing it come together is often easier for me to understand.
      - larrywright 7y ago
        I've been programming for a long time, but I find it comforting to see someone who I admire/respect/has more experience in a given area/ struggle with things too.
    - thanatropism 7y ago
      Youtube videos suffer from a lot of optimization hacks. The content takes too long to start, etc. Maybe livestreaming is still "unpolished" in a way that makes them good passive watching like all those music theory channels. (Sometimes I have a stressful day at work, leave earlier, plop on the couch and put a Topologos Lutecium video. Trigger alert though those are not mathematics.)
- chrshawkes 7y ago
  Videos are much better, even tutorials in my opinion because blogs easily and all the time leave out pertinent details that a video tutorial will not be able to cover up. Missed the config setting? Won't work in the tutorial, will in the blog. YouTube is a very popular option for people looking to learn to code, talk about code etc.
Liquidor 7y ago
I've been hanging out in the Science (Programming) community on Twitch almost every day for a couple of years and I can tell you that it's definitely influenced by the social aspects of streaming. I've even streamed myself programming once in a while and I plan on doing that a lot more here in 2019. It's fun. Streaming while programming is definitely slower, and sometimes unproductive. You repeat yourself a lot, since people come and go constantly, but the pros can sometimes make up for that; Sharing and receiving help/knowledge from your viewers is amazing. We all get stuck sometimes, and I've seen countless of times a viewer (myself included) have the answer or solution to the problem. Very polite! The social part is definitely a big factor and you meet a huge audience of programmers of all levels worldwide. Also I love to help, and StackOverflow can sometimes be boring and dry to look at. Watching and helping someone programming on stream is a lot more interactive.
- ben509 7y ago
  It does sound like fun, and I might give it a shot. I had been thinking of putting some of my notes up as I work, but so much of it doesn't really lend itself to a blog post, at the moment it's mostly me banging my head against type inference stuff.
nbrochu 7y ago
I have done it for about 1.5 years straight, 24+ hours a week. Currently on an extended break to recharge my batteries but I'm definitely going back. It's slightly addictive and you come to miss it. The best part is you eventually end up knowing the other programming streamers which builds a sense of community. In my personal experience, the productivity hit is overstated. It's absolutely harder to focus because of chat and the discussions that come with it, yes, but at the same time you have a camera pointed at your face and your screen is shown to the world. Whatever you normally do to distract yourself and procrastinate... I can guarantee you don't. You also build a resistance to interruptions over time, which is an amazing skill for a programmer to have. I didn't believe it to be possible, but it eventually became so easy to pause what I was doing, interact with chat for a few minutes and instantly resume where I left off after. To go even further, it's a great way to put in consistent work and keep motivation up for large, long-term projects. I have built the entirety of the Serpent.AI Framework (https://github.com/SerpentAI/SerpentAI https://github.com/SerpentAI/SerpentAI) while live on my Twitch channel and I'm not sure I would have ever shipped it otherwise. The interactive nature of live streaming can give you that nice push on days you don't quite feel like it. Streaming programming is not for everyone but I still recommend to give it a try. The experience is hard to put into words. I've had a blast and got to know great people.
- charliepark 7y ago
  How do you get into it? I think it'd be neat to try, but have no idea how I'd get going. The Twitch "getting started" docs are surprisingly anemic. (Do they even have a growth team? This seems like table stakes.) For someone who hasn't ever watched Twitch, and really just wants to focus on coding in a streaming context, do you have any "start looking here" suggestions?
  - sushiday 7y ago
    Suz Hinton (https://www.twitch.tv/noopkat https://www.twitch.tv/noopkat) has a great article about her Twitch live coding setup: https://medium.com/@suzhinton/my-twitch-live-coding-setup-b2516672fb21 https://medium.com/@suzhinton/my-twitch-live-coding-setup-b2... Also, check out the programming streamers on belly.io! Many of us are happy to answer questions and help out new streamers. :)

by ben509 7y ago

charlzz 7y ago

It's probably like singing. Once you get used to an audience, you can probably manage. Those that can't handle it likely quit.

larrywright 7y ago

I’ve never streamed my coding, but I have enjoyed watching people on Twitch or Youtube do it. It’s different than typical programming tutorials I’ve seen on Youtube - I dislike those as I’d rather read a blog post because it’s easier to skim and go back and re-read things to make sure you understand them. Watching someone build a thing live is different though. It’s unedited, you can see how they work and how they approach a problem, how they handle troubleshooting, what their development environment looks like. I don’t watch them in order to learn how to do a thing (although I almost always learn something), but it’s more like watching over the shoulder of a developer as they build something.

duxup 7y ago
>It’s different than typical programming tutorials I’ve seen on Youtube - I dislike those Oh man me too, I've avoided live coding because of it but your post makes me think I should give some of it a watch.
- larrywright 7y ago
  There are few things worse than a Youtube video that should have been a blog post - I’ve encountered plenty of programming ones, but also lots of technical how-to things that just needed to be a few hundred words of text and some screenshots. I suspect it’s easier to monetize Youtube videos these days, so that’s why people are doing it. As for live coding, it really is a completely different experience, and I expect something different from it. My only complaint is that it’s often difficult to find them - Twitch is very much oriented towards gaming, so finding the coders there is like finding the needle in a haystack. Hopefully Belly.io can help (can’t tell since it appears to have been hugged to death).
  - duxup 7y ago
    >There are few things worse than a Youtube video that should have been a blog post - Yeah we're totally on the same page there. I want to read, reread, and reread (i'm bad at reading comprehension) when it comes to these youtube videos that should be blogs. I'm a bit of a n00b and constantly looking for some good patterns or such, live coding might help but understand it a bit better than finding a monolith app as seeing it come together is often easier for me to understand.
    - larrywright 7y ago
      I've been programming for a long time, but I find it comforting to see someone who I admire/respect/has more experience in a given area/ struggle with things too.
  - thanatropism 7y ago
    Youtube videos suffer from a lot of optimization hacks. The content takes too long to start, etc. Maybe livestreaming is still "unpolished" in a way that makes them good passive watching like all those music theory channels. (Sometimes I have a stressful day at work, leave earlier, plop on the couch and put a Topologos Lutecium video. Trigger alert though those are not mathematics.)
chrshawkes 7y ago
Videos are much better, even tutorials in my opinion because blogs easily and all the time leave out pertinent details that a video tutorial will not be able to cover up. Missed the config setting? Won't work in the tutorial, will in the blog. YouTube is a very popular option for people looking to learn to code, talk about code etc.

Liquidor 7y ago

I've been hanging out in the Science (Programming) community on Twitch almost every day for a couple of years and I can tell you that it's definitely influenced by the social aspects of streaming. I've even streamed myself programming once in a while and I plan on doing that a lot more here in 2019. It's fun. Streaming while programming is definitely slower, and sometimes unproductive. You repeat yourself a lot, since people come and go constantly, but the pros can sometimes make up for that; Sharing and receiving help/knowledge from your viewers is amazing. We all get stuck sometimes, and I've seen countless of times a viewer (myself included) have the answer or solution to the problem. Very polite! The social part is definitely a big factor and you meet a huge audience of programmers of all levels worldwide. Also I love to help, and StackOverflow can sometimes be boring and dry to look at. Watching and helping someone programming on stream is a lot more interactive.

ben509 7y ago
It does sound like fun, and I might give it a shot. I had been thinking of putting some of my notes up as I work, but so much of it doesn't really lend itself to a blog post, at the moment it's mostly me banging my head against type inference stuff.

nbrochu 7y ago

I have done it for about 1.5 years straight, 24+ hours a week. Currently on an extended break to recharge my batteries but I'm definitely going back. It's slightly addictive and you come to miss it. The best part is you eventually end up knowing the other programming streamers which builds a sense of community. In my personal experience, the productivity hit is overstated. It's absolutely harder to focus because of chat and the discussions that come with it, yes, but at the same time you have a camera pointed at your face and your screen is shown to the world. Whatever you normally do to distract yourself and procrastinate... I can guarantee you don't. You also build a resistance to interruptions over time, which is an amazing skill for a programmer to have. I didn't believe it to be possible, but it eventually became so easy to pause what I was doing, interact with chat for a few minutes and instantly resume where I left off after. To go even further, it's a great way to put in consistent work and keep motivation up for large, long-term projects. I have built the entirety of the Serpent.AI Framework (https://github.com/SerpentAI/SerpentAI https://github.com/SerpentAI/SerpentAI) while live on my Twitch channel and I'm not sure I would have ever shipped it otherwise. The interactive nature of live streaming can give you that nice push on days you don't quite feel like it. Streaming programming is not for everyone but I still recommend to give it a try. The experience is hard to put into words. I've had a blast and got to know great people.

charliepark 7y ago
How do you get into it? I think it'd be neat to try, but have no idea how I'd get going. The Twitch "getting started" docs are surprisingly anemic. (Do they even have a growth team? This seems like table stakes.) For someone who hasn't ever watched Twitch, and really just wants to focus on coding in a streaming context, do you have any "start looking here" suggestions?
- sushiday 7y ago
  Suz Hinton (https://www.twitch.tv/noopkat https://www.twitch.tv/noopkat) has a great article about her Twitch live coding setup: https://medium.com/@suzhinton/my-twitch-live-coding-setup-b2516672fb21 https://medium.com/@suzhinton/my-twitch-live-coding-setup-b2... Also, check out the programming streamers on belly.io! Many of us are happy to answer questions and help out new streamers. :)