6 ms·

A Screencast On Refactoring JavaScript

50 points by derickbailey 15y ago

xutopia 15y ago
Considering that PeepCode sells their videos 9$ each and has cheaper options if you purchase a plan I find 14$ a bit steep for a video from someone I don't know as well.
- derickbailey 15y ago
  It is a risk buying from someone that you don't know. At one point, no one knew who PeepCode was either. Geoffrey grew his brand and became well known. As for the price - PeeCode sells all their recent videos at $12 each, for ~1hr of content. So, $14 seemed reasonable to me (also based on the price I've paid at Tekpub, DestroyAllSoftware and other screencasting sites) considering the length of the content that I've produced. But, you may be right. Maybe I should drop it since I am an unknown person in the screencasting world.
  - thibaut_barrere 15y ago
    I wouldn't first lower the price, but rather add more information on the page about why I should trust you as a coach (who are you, what is your background etc). My 0,02€!
    - derickbailey 15y ago
      that's a great idea
      - thibaut_barrere 15y ago
        I'll add that Peter Cooper sells 3 hours at $24 (only with a temporary discount, see http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=3177303 http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=3177303), as another pricing point.
        petercooper 15y ago
        I am still experimenting with price but my starting price point $16 was where most sales were made. However, I do have a large audience and you tend to sell the most copies up front.. :)
  - Udo 15y ago
    I'm not a customer of coding tutorial videos, I don't know either you or PeepCode. As an outsider looking into this market, I'd like to offer my totally unqualified opinion as follows: Upwards of $10 is too high. Yeah, you'll probably sell a few, but I believe the sweet spot for those kind of purchases is around the price equivalent to a cup of coffee in a decent coffee shop. It should be low enough that people don't have to think about the price-to-risk ratio, it's something they buy on impulse just to see someone do stuff with code. I believe you'll probably get way more exposure and, ultimately, sales from being low cost. Also, consider putting up some short but useful videos (not teasers) for free, so people get to know your style and trust your expertise. Charge for the longer, premium content.
    - derickbailey 15y ago
      Re: short videos - great idea. I've got a few 5 or 10 minute videos on getting started with Test-Driven JavaScript using the Jasmine framework. I can give those away and then have a much longer episode on really diving deep into Jasmine. Hopefully I'll be able to get this done soon.
      - Udo 15y ago
        Sounds great! Good luck with your business. Post an update sometime, I'm be curious how it'll turn out.
      - peteysd 15y ago
        I think this is the way to go. Offer folks one or two shorter examples of your work for free, and they will be more comfortable with purchasing your longer works. If the free examples are solid, then they will be linked to and shared. This will help establish your name and expertise in the subject matter, and will bring many more eyeballs to your site, which will hopefully convert into sales.
    - lhnz 15y ago
      I agree with this guy and I think one of the reasons for this is that a lot of the people that buy into this will do so casually: as (a) a one-off at a low price. They also (b) may not be willing to sit for an hour watching. Agreed with making some teaser videos -- perhaps the first 15-30 minutes of the video they are interested in. Then bring up a call-to-action and measure your conversions. Due to the possibility of people watching this at lunchtimes at work it might also be a good idea to (1) create some way for people to bookmark where they watched up to, and (2) make the site look as work-like as possible.
- petercooper 15y ago
  I'm not sure when you last visited, but PeepCode has been $12 per video for quite some time now.
robryan 15y ago
Seems to be a trend that most screen casts are paid whereas most text based equivalents aren't. I guess this might be because people have expressed a willingness to pay for this type of content whereas text based blog type articles and tutorials are a lot harder to convince people to pay.
- ez77 15y ago
  Absolutely. I’ve expressed my idea a few times while trying not to spam HN. I, for one, would be most interested in paying to be able to see how an experienced coder gets a typical project up and running from scratch. Now, I gather most professionals have highly-customized templates, which may involve scripts, special setups and what not, so this may be a pedagogical challenge, but seeing a knowledgeable coder at work, preferably on bite-sized objectives and full of informal comments, would be an absolute plus for me. (I’m sure I’m not alone.)
  - derickbailey 15y ago
    Interesting that you say that... I've often though exactly the opposite on what I want to see. In my experience, a project set up is such an un-common occurrence (it only happens once per project, after all) that there is really nothing special or customized about doing it. When I set up a project, I download and install everything as if I had never done it before. I don't use any special tools or scripts. I just use whatever the framework and plugin system I choose comes with. My intention with this screencast was specifically not to show project setup, but to show the later stages of a project. I find most of the breakdown and slog through code happens after something has been in place for a while, and now needs to change - hence the need for refactoring. ... but, I do have some ideas that would play well in to what you're wanting. I'll definitely keep this in mind as I'm looking at what I'm going to work on next.
johnohara 15y ago
A high school teacher in the U.S., with 10+ years of experience, makes about $65,000 per year -- on average. There are generally 180 days of school per year. Let's say she teaches 5 classes per day, 20 students per class. That works out to ~$3.60 per student per class. Classes run about 40 minutes each or ~$0.09 per minute. I know there are many variables affecting this calculation but if screencasting is about delivering consise, high quality instruction, consistently, then $0.10 - $0.15 per minute does not seem unreasonable. Nor should $0.20 per minute ($12.00 per hour). But it's interesting that it does. Compare that to what an undergraduate student pays per minute for a lecture given by a TA to he and 200 of his closest friends.
- johnohara 15y ago
  Downvote and no reply?
  - derickbailey 15y ago
    Wasn't me - I thought your breakdown was quite informative. My pricing fits squarely within your range, at just under $0.12 per minute.
- petercooper 15y ago
  Sorry for the tangent but is 20 students per class typical for the US? Here in the UK my classes in high school were typically 30. 35 in science! :-) With 5 classes of an hour each. That, to my surprise, drops the 9c/m to 4c/m(!)
  - johnohara 15y ago
    Most K-12 schools in the U.S. try to keep class sizes below 30. 20-25 is a good representative sample. Class size and the length of the school day are always negotiation points. As you probably experienced, class sizes above 30 are challenging even for the best of teachers.
- sukuriant 15y ago
  Not to detract from your position too much, but teachers aren't paid just for their lecturing time. They should also be paid for their planning time and their grading papers time. And where is your stat for 65k a year. I understood it to be, in states like Florida, substantially lower. More like 40. I don't have numbers either, though.
dmix 15y ago
I found this blog post that seems to provide a more in depth look at what is covered in the screencast: http://lostechies.com/derickbailey/2011/10/25/rebuilding-my-backbone-js-plugins-with-modules-srp-and-more/ http://lostechies.com/derickbailey/2011/10/25/rebuilding-my-...
- derickbailey 15y ago
  Yeah, that blog post is a companion to the screencast. The purpose of the post is to provide some additional thoughts on the high level refactorings that I did, while the screencast is intended to show _how_ to do the refactorings instead of just why.
dzejkej 15y ago
Just FYI - price is on $9 for next 3 1/2 days :).
derickbailey 15y ago
FYI - I've knocked the price down to $9 for the next few days. :)
derickbailey 15y ago
FYI - I had been incorrectly advertising the screencast as 120 minutes. It's actually 1:21 - 1 hour, 20 minutes. I'm terribly sorry about that. I've corrected the site.

50 points by derickbailey 15y ago

Considering that PeepCode sells their videos 9$ each and has cheaper options if you purchase a plan I find 14$ a bit steep for a video from someone I don't know as well.

derickbailey 15y ago
It is a risk buying from someone that you don't know. At one point, no one knew who PeepCode was either. Geoffrey grew his brand and became well known. As for the price - PeeCode sells all their recent videos at $12 each, for ~1hr of content. So, $14 seemed reasonable to me (also based on the price I've paid at Tekpub, DestroyAllSoftware and other screencasting sites) considering the length of the content that I've produced. But, you may be right. Maybe I should drop it since I am an unknown person in the screencasting world.
- thibaut_barrere 15y ago
  I wouldn't first lower the price, but rather add more information on the page about why I should trust you as a coach (who are you, what is your background etc). My 0,02€!
  - derickbailey 15y ago
    that's a great idea
    - thibaut_barrere 15y ago
      I'll add that Peter Cooper sells 3 hours at $24 (only with a temporary discount, see http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=3177303 http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=3177303), as another pricing point.
      - petercooper 15y ago
        I am still experimenting with price but my starting price point $16 was where most sales were made. However, I do have a large audience and you tend to sell the most copies up front.. :)
- Udo 15y ago
  I'm not a customer of coding tutorial videos, I don't know either you or PeepCode. As an outsider looking into this market, I'd like to offer my totally unqualified opinion as follows: Upwards of $10 is too high. Yeah, you'll probably sell a few, but I believe the sweet spot for those kind of purchases is around the price equivalent to a cup of coffee in a decent coffee shop. It should be low enough that people don't have to think about the price-to-risk ratio, it's something they buy on impulse just to see someone do stuff with code. I believe you'll probably get way more exposure and, ultimately, sales from being low cost. Also, consider putting up some short but useful videos (not teasers) for free, so people get to know your style and trust your expertise. Charge for the longer, premium content.
  - derickbailey 15y ago
    Re: short videos - great idea. I've got a few 5 or 10 minute videos on getting started with Test-Driven JavaScript using the Jasmine framework. I can give those away and then have a much longer episode on really diving deep into Jasmine. Hopefully I'll be able to get this done soon.
    - Udo 15y ago
      Sounds great! Good luck with your business. Post an update sometime, I'm be curious how it'll turn out.
    - peteysd 15y ago
      I think this is the way to go. Offer folks one or two shorter examples of your work for free, and they will be more comfortable with purchasing your longer works. If the free examples are solid, then they will be linked to and shared. This will help establish your name and expertise in the subject matter, and will bring many more eyeballs to your site, which will hopefully convert into sales.
  - lhnz 15y ago
    I agree with this guy and I think one of the reasons for this is that a lot of the people that buy into this will do so casually: as (a) a one-off at a low price. They also (b) may not be willing to sit for an hour watching. Agreed with making some teaser videos -- perhaps the first 15-30 minutes of the video they are interested in. Then bring up a call-to-action and measure your conversions. Due to the possibility of people watching this at lunchtimes at work it might also be a good idea to (1) create some way for people to bookmark where they watched up to, and (2) make the site look as work-like as possible.
petercooper 15y ago
I'm not sure when you last visited, but PeepCode has been $12 per video for quite some time now.

robryan 15y ago

Seems to be a trend that most screen casts are paid whereas most text based equivalents aren't. I guess this might be because people have expressed a willingness to pay for this type of content whereas text based blog type articles and tutorials are a lot harder to convince people to pay.

ez77 15y ago
Absolutely. I’ve expressed my idea a few times while trying not to spam HN. I, for one, would be most interested in paying to be able to see how an experienced coder gets a typical project up and running from scratch. Now, I gather most professionals have highly-customized templates, which may involve scripts, special setups and what not, so this may be a pedagogical challenge, but seeing a knowledgeable coder at work, preferably on bite-sized objectives and full of informal comments, would be an absolute plus for me. (I’m sure I’m not alone.)
- derickbailey 15y ago
  Interesting that you say that... I've often though exactly the opposite on what I want to see. In my experience, a project set up is such an un-common occurrence (it only happens once per project, after all) that there is really nothing special or customized about doing it. When I set up a project, I download and install everything as if I had never done it before. I don't use any special tools or scripts. I just use whatever the framework and plugin system I choose comes with. My intention with this screencast was specifically not to show project setup, but to show the later stages of a project. I find most of the breakdown and slog through code happens after something has been in place for a while, and now needs to change - hence the need for refactoring. ... but, I do have some ideas that would play well in to what you're wanting. I'll definitely keep this in mind as I'm looking at what I'm going to work on next.

johnohara 15y ago

A high school teacher in the U.S., with 10+ years of experience, makes about $65,000 per year -- on average. There are generally 180 days of school per year. Let's say she teaches 5 classes per day, 20 students per class. That works out to ~$3.60 per student per class. Classes run about 40 minutes each or ~$0.09 per minute. I know there are many variables affecting this calculation but if screencasting is about delivering consise, high quality instruction, consistently, then $0.10 - $0.15 per minute does not seem unreasonable. Nor should $0.20 per minute ($12.00 per hour). But it's interesting that it does. Compare that to what an undergraduate student pays per minute for a lecture given by a TA to he and 200 of his closest friends.

johnohara 15y ago
Downvote and no reply?
- derickbailey 15y ago
  Wasn't me - I thought your breakdown was quite informative. My pricing fits squarely within your range, at just under $0.12 per minute.
petercooper 15y ago
Sorry for the tangent but is 20 students per class typical for the US? Here in the UK my classes in high school were typically 30. 35 in science! :-) With 5 classes of an hour each. That, to my surprise, drops the 9c/m to 4c/m(!)
- johnohara 15y ago
  Most K-12 schools in the U.S. try to keep class sizes below 30. 20-25 is a good representative sample. Class size and the length of the school day are always negotiation points. As you probably experienced, class sizes above 30 are challenging even for the best of teachers.
sukuriant 15y ago
Not to detract from your position too much, but teachers aren't paid just for their lecturing time. They should also be paid for their planning time and their grading papers time. And where is your stat for 65k a year. I understood it to be, in states like Florida, substantially lower. More like 40. I don't have numbers either, though.

dmix 15y ago

I found this blog post that seems to provide a more in depth look at what is covered in the screencast: http://lostechies.com/derickbailey/2011/10/25/rebuilding-my-backbone-js-plugins-with-modules-srp-and-more/ http://lostechies.com/derickbailey/2011/10/25/rebuilding-my-...

derickbailey 15y ago
Yeah, that blog post is a companion to the screencast. The purpose of the post is to provide some additional thoughts on the high level refactorings that I did, while the screencast is intended to show _how_ to do the refactorings instead of just why.

dzejkej 15y ago

Just FYI - price is on $9 for next 3 1/2 days :).

derickbailey 15y ago

FYI - I've knocked the price down to $9 for the next few days. :)

derickbailey 15y ago

FYI - I had been incorrectly advertising the screencast as 120 minutes. It's actually 1:21 - 1 hour, 20 minutes. I'm terribly sorry about that. I've corrected the site.