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I have to say, I generally dislike video coding tutorials. First, it's difficult to google/copy-paste. Second, it just goes against the way I learn new program

by runn1ng 14y ago

I have to say, I generally dislike video coding tutorials. First, it's difficult to google/copy-paste. Second, it just goes against the way I learn new programming languages - I generally read it, then try it, then experiment with it in some other ways, list few pages back/forth, experiment more, fail, then continue. Usually copypasting/rewriting chunks of code. "What happens when I do THAT? Oh, it fails miserably. Why? Oh, that's why." I can easily reread some parts. I can easily skim back/forth. While with the video, I don't want to hear the person more than twice, usually. The voice becomes annoying for the third time you hear it. I feel that videos work great for demonstrating a language. I can never actually learn any language from a video tutorial. (If you will bring the analogy of lecture - yes, this is partly true, but good lectures should be somehow interactive. The lecturer asks students, they can ask the lecturer back.)

why-el 14y ago
I actually enjoy these types of videos. I think actually typing stuff off of the video, and sometimes changing it a bit, works best for me. It's even better when you watch the video once, get the gist of it, then try to rewrite the whole thing. And it's plain faster. Having this tutorial in text will probably take you more time to read than you could have saved copy pasting.
ballooney 14y ago
> First, it's difficult to google/copy-paste That's a feature! No seriously. Among an august audience like HN people might have more discipline to properly grok the code they're copying, but I know of plenty of places where people will just copy and paste disparate chunks of tutorial code into their editor then start randomly changing lines and variables (with a hundred questions demanded of the poor folks in some irc channel) until it sort-of-but-not-quite works. Forcing people to write it from scratch, having had the construction demonstrated, seems to aid the mental digestion of the code much better. That's just my anecdotal experience anyway.
codegeek 14y ago
"I can never actually learn any language from a video tutorial." I like video tutorials/screencasts as long as they have the following : 1. Trainer starts with a basic list of topics/table of contents. Nothing fancy but give me an overall overview of what I will learn out of this. 2. A particular topic is taught gradually i.e. by starting with a simpler or even wrong way (as in best practices) and then improving it to show the more standard way. For don't just show me the final end product.Show me how to do it in a crude/simpler way, then improve the code (may be refactor etc) or add more features. Explain each improvement while you are doing it and WHY you are doing it.This makes us learn the gotchas and pitfalls and may be even best practices.For example, I can put all the code in one file to start with but then how can/should I refactor it in some recommended way? (MVC?) 2. Show me more than 1 way of doing something if it helps me learn the concept. Again, kind of related to #1. 3. Break the code on purpose and explain what the error message means. Then fix it and re-run. For example, in learning Django/Flask, if you are missing a template, it will crash/error out. So don't create the template right away. Build the code without template and let me see how it crashes. Then add the template and re-run to show me success. 4. Unless you are teaching design specifically, save the HTML/CSS/JS tricks/enhancements for the end. Show me the core product. I am sure there are more but these help me a lot personally. In fact, I am learning Python/Flask right now and looking to write my own tutorials on how I learnt it.
- ReinH 14y ago
  These are great points and I will do my best to incorporate them in future episodes. Thanks very much for taking the time.
  - knwang 14y ago
    Also, would love to see some explanation of basic Haskell concepts
johnpmayer 14y ago
While certainly anecdotal, I attribute 99% of my opengl knowledge to the extremely comprehensive WebGL 101 videos by emoller. The video was two hours long, but it took me about 8 to get through as I copied code, made changes I liked, and made sure it compiled at each milestone. Of course, opengl/webgl isn't a language, and the hand-holding might be more necessary. Finally, all of his code (each finished milestone, of which there were at least a dozen) was available on github. For the lazy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=me3BviH3nZc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=me3BviH3nZc
ReinH 14y ago
I appreciate your opinion but I will respectfully point out that I am making these videos for the other set of people who do like video coding tutorials. You should feel free to not watch them if they do not preserve the water-dorsal relationship of your water-going vessel. :)
- olmobrutall 14y ago
  Congratulations, really good work. Making videos is hard, at least for me cos I'm not native, and they get easily outdated. For a .Net guy with a little knowledge of Haskell like me, in the video you can show not only the language but the IDE and the programming experience.
gtani 14y ago
A good video can be a huge time saver for showing workflow, how an experienced coder uses the editor/IDE, REPL, debugger, git and testing libs/CI

by runn1ng 14y ago

why-el 14y ago

I actually enjoy these types of videos. I think actually typing stuff off of the video, and sometimes changing it a bit, works best for me. It's even better when you watch the video once, get the gist of it, then try to rewrite the whole thing. And it's plain faster. Having this tutorial in text will probably take you more time to read than you could have saved copy pasting.

ballooney 14y ago

> First, it's difficult to google/copy-paste That's a feature! No seriously. Among an august audience like HN people might have more discipline to properly grok the code they're copying, but I know of plenty of places where people will just copy and paste disparate chunks of tutorial code into their editor then start randomly changing lines and variables (with a hundred questions demanded of the poor folks in some irc channel) until it sort-of-but-not-quite works. Forcing people to write it from scratch, having had the construction demonstrated, seems to aid the mental digestion of the code much better. That's just my anecdotal experience anyway.

codegeek 14y ago

"I can never actually learn any language from a video tutorial." I like video tutorials/screencasts as long as they have the following : 1. Trainer starts with a basic list of topics/table of contents. Nothing fancy but give me an overall overview of what I will learn out of this. 2. A particular topic is taught gradually i.e. by starting with a simpler or even wrong way (as in best practices) and then improving it to show the more standard way. For don't just show me the final end product.Show me how to do it in a crude/simpler way, then improve the code (may be refactor etc) or add more features. Explain each improvement while you are doing it and WHY you are doing it.This makes us learn the gotchas and pitfalls and may be even best practices.For example, I can put all the code in one file to start with but then how can/should I refactor it in some recommended way? (MVC?) 2. Show me more than 1 way of doing something if it helps me learn the concept. Again, kind of related to #1. 3. Break the code on purpose and explain what the error message means. Then fix it and re-run. For example, in learning Django/Flask, if you are missing a template, it will crash/error out. So don't create the template right away. Build the code without template and let me see how it crashes. Then add the template and re-run to show me success. 4. Unless you are teaching design specifically, save the HTML/CSS/JS tricks/enhancements for the end. Show me the core product. I am sure there are more but these help me a lot personally. In fact, I am learning Python/Flask right now and looking to write my own tutorials on how I learnt it.

ReinH 14y ago
These are great points and I will do my best to incorporate them in future episodes. Thanks very much for taking the time.
- knwang 14y ago
  Also, would love to see some explanation of basic Haskell concepts

johnpmayer 14y ago

While certainly anecdotal, I attribute 99% of my opengl knowledge to the extremely comprehensive WebGL 101 videos by emoller. The video was two hours long, but it took me about 8 to get through as I copied code, made changes I liked, and made sure it compiled at each milestone. Of course, opengl/webgl isn't a language, and the hand-holding might be more necessary. Finally, all of his code (each finished milestone, of which there were at least a dozen) was available on github. For the lazy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=me3BviH3nZc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=me3BviH3nZc

ReinH 14y ago

I appreciate your opinion but I will respectfully point out that I am making these videos for the other set of people who do like video coding tutorials. You should feel free to not watch them if they do not preserve the water-dorsal relationship of your water-going vessel. :)

olmobrutall 14y ago
Congratulations, really good work. Making videos is hard, at least for me cos I'm not native, and they get easily outdated. For a .Net guy with a little knowledge of Haskell like me, in the video you can show not only the language but the IDE and the programming experience.

gtani 14y ago

A good video can be a huge time saver for showing workflow, how an experienced coder uses the editor/IDE, REPL, debugger, git and testing libs/CI