10 ms·

That's fascinating, and I had no idea web dev influencers were so big. I checked, and there really are people with millions of followers doing development. Pers

by ewzimm 2y ago

That's fascinating, and I had no idea web dev influencers were so big. I checked, and there really are people with millions of followers doing development. Personally, the idea of learning anything related to coding through a video is extremely frustrating. It's a text medium. I want to look at things, take time, think it over, compare code, follow references, look up functions. That people like video formats isn't really surprising to me since it's everywhere, but I still don't fully understand the appeal. Even if you were raised on video content and started coding that way, at some point you have to reference text documentation, right? At that point, I would think you would just stick to the text and not go back to the video, but maybe it's just more entertaining the other way.

wiseowise 2y ago
> That people like video formats isn't really surprising to me since it's everywhere That’s because those “people” are either larping students or kids that want to become programmers. I have never in my 10 year career met a person who said “yeah, I learn my craft from Fireship videos”.
- nine_k 2y ago
  Likely these videos did not exist when your reference / age group was acquiring these skills. Videos are sort of easier to produce (via screen capture), and are much easier to show the effect of FE things: look, we write code like this, now we can click here, and the page reacts that way. No need to muck with JSFiddle or something. I'm not a fan of videos as a reference medium, but they can be elucidating to those who needs more hand-holding, literally "click here, see the result". Back in the day, a few short videos about Blender helped me quite bit to grasp certain things that were not obvious from descriptions.
  - wiseowise 2y ago
    Blender is a gui first program, it makes sense that videos will work for it.
    - nine_k 2y ago
      HTML and CSS are sort of GUI-first, too.
- golergka 2y ago
  I've learned most of what I know about database internals from MCU lecture course on YouTube. It's great.
  - willhslade 2y ago
    Marvel cinematic university?
    - aaronblohowiak 2y ago
      I assume its CMU, Carnegie Mellon u
    - thaumasiotes 2y ago
      You wouldn't believe what else you can learn there.
      - DidYaWipe 2y ago
        I learned a new definition of boredom.
  - wiseowise 2y ago
    Famous YouTube influencer checks notes Carnegie Mellon university.
bloomingkales 2y ago
Here's one: https://remix.run/ https://remix.run/ These grifters sell entire courses on the product, that's their game. So when you find an unmaintained Remix app at your company, well, the grifters got the ears of your junior devs :( And they just promote it and promote it: https://kentcdodds.com/blog/a-review-of-my-time-at-remix https://kentcdodds.com/blog/a-review-of-my-time-at-remix https://kentcdodds.com/blog/why-i-love-remix https://kentcdodds.com/blog/why-i-love-remix https://kentcdodds.com/courses https://kentcdodds.com/courses Pure grift. But since most people are decent people they don't know and fall for it, and something like this influencer emerges. They have entire Discords of customers, the same as crypto scams. Edit: I don't know why people would downvote calling out a notable grifter in a thread that extended out to a discussion about influencers. WHICH influencers? Are we scared of that topic? The climate of the JS ecosystem didn't happen accidently. People fall victim to this shit right here on HN, and then write blog posts about what the fuck is wrong with frontend: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39453767 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39453767 (This entire thread reads like deliberate testimonials.) Stop buying this stuff.
- numinoid 2y ago
  Not sure it's fair to characterize a repo with 6k + commits and the last being 10 hours ago as "pure grift".
  - bloomingkales 2y ago
    I think that adds to my point. How does that have so many stars on github? The customers "star" it. Who uses this on a real app? It's alright to slowly accept the bitter truth that grifting scales.
    - numinoid 2y ago
      Not really sure that's relevant. Grift implies an intentional value extraction without providing anything. Using your example: I'm confident that the time spent working on remix and courses related to it resulted in far less monetary gain than spinning out courses on React. If you think Remix is misguided or a bad framework etc... that is very different from grifting. A corollary: Is Deno a grift because it shares the same creator as Node and has a paid product attached to it? In my opinion no but you might disagree... I'm mostly opposed to the idea remix in particular exists purely as a grift - love it or hate it there are far easier ways for someone with the influence of Kent to make money.
Vegenoid 2y ago
These videos are edutainment at best, which is generally not a good way to learn something well enough to be able to actually work with it. A lot of them are pretty much straight up entertainment, where the entertainment value comes from drama and strong opinions. They're totally fine if you know that, but some of their audience does not know that. I've been seeing more and more of a certain kind of person who are into these videos on some Discord servers, and it is clear that they are driven more by culture and style than by the goal of creating some thing, or having a strong understanding of how to make computers do certain things.
jasode 2y ago
>, the idea of learning anything related to coding through a video is extremely frustrating. It's a text medium. I want to look at things, take time, think it over, compare code, follow references, look up functions. That people like video formats isn't really surprising to me since it's everywhere, but I still don't fully understand the appeal. I like (some) programming videos and I'll give my perspective as someone who learned 100% from books and 3-ring binders for old languages like C/C++/C#/Javascript/Python/bash/etc. (The 1980s Microsoft C Compiler manuals were 3-ring binders.) The newer languages I learned with a hybrid of videos + traditional books would be HTML CSS, Apple Swift, and PyTorch with the latest AI toolkits and libraries. The extra dimension that videos offer besides plain text is the live usage of IDE, tools, troubleshooting, etc. For me, watching a dynamic screen with a moving mouse cursor and voiceover seems to activate extra neurons moreso than just reading static text in a book. There's also a lot of "activities in-between the coding" that's helpful such as seeing the programmer looking up something in various pages of documentation, scrolling around, navigating etc. Another useful aspect that's underappreciated is seeing the mistakes the programmer makes during the video recording. E.g. the code doesn't compile because of invalid syntax. Or a config setting is wrong and he troubleshoots what's preventing it from working. In contrast, virtually all text books or blogs of coding are "perfect happy path" outcomes. But real-world programming is messy with broken intermediate states. A lot of videos show the messy steps to get to a working state. The videos that are not that helpful would be the videos of C++ CppCon conference sessions where there are a bunch of static slides with bullet points and the speaker just reads them aloud word-for-word. Although I learned C++ from textbooks, I found videos of Matt Godbolt showing tips & tricks of how to use his Compiler Explorer (http://godbolt.org http://godbolt.org) very helpful. In summary, the artifacts of coding may be the text, but the activity of coding involves a lot more than just the text and that's why some videos can enhance learning.
- kunzhi 2y ago
  I'm not sure if this is what you intended, but I read this as a great argument in favor of pair programming.
- mitthrowaway2 2y ago
  Definitely. As long as the videos are uncut, they can be a confidence booster that I'll be able to replicate the result, because I can follow them knowing they won't skip over those little steps that often go without mention. Well, unless they're being sneaky with hotkeys.
2muchcoffeeman 2y ago
I get shorts in my feed and it’s all Front End developers. It’s all stupid JS behaviour and other inconsequential stuff.
zeroq 2y ago
This correlates to my parent post - when my generation started with Flash around 2000 there was no literature on how to programm in Flash, it just happened. So we went to the nearest bookstore and got a bunch of other books on programming. For many Flash developers the bible was Thinking in Java by Bruce Eckel. Most of the source materials for game programming (and that was a lion share of Flash programming) was in C++. I'm not claiming that we were smarter, but by sheer coincidence, most people, even folks like me who skipped school, had very solid fundamentals. And partially due to the fact that it wasn't that lucrative back then. Today most people don't care, IT is just easy money, kids have short attention span and trends are tailored by tiktok videos. All in all, it's just a fashion driven developement.
- SkyBelow 2y ago
  >I'm not claiming that we were smarter, but by sheer coincidence, most people, even folks like me who skipped school, had very solid fundamentals. Higher barrier of entry should statistically lead to less people making it past and that those who do make it past aren't a random sampling of the initial group making the attempt. While the selection isn't only for intelligence, specifically the subsets of intelligence related to programming, I would doubt any claims it wasn't a factor at all.
koreth1 2y ago
> That people like video formats isn't really surprising to me since it's everywhere, but I still don't fully understand the appeal. Me either, but I have a hunch about why. Are you a fast reader? I am, at least compared to the population at large. And one of the reasons I can't stand video as a format for learning about coding topics is that it is so frustratingly slow compared to my reading speed. To get anywhere close, I have to crank the playback speed up so high that I start having trouble understanding what the presenter is saying. That's on top of other things like poor searchability and no way to copy-paste code snippets. The decline of reading skills, at least in the US, is pretty well-documented. And my hunch is that for the increasingly large number of people coming into the industry who don't read quickly or well, the efficiency of learning from videos is closer to parity with text. What's more, I suspect there's high correlation between lower reading skills and dislike of the act of reading, so videos are a way to avoid having to do something unpleasant. I have no solid evidence to back any of this up, but it seems at least as plausible to me as any other explanations I've run across.
- Swizec 2y ago
  Alternatively: you can listen to audio while commuting or driving or cleaning or working out. I love audio for higher level things and to get an overview of the topic. Then text to dive into the details.
  - ricardobeat 2y ago
    It can be quite difficult to follow programming topics over audio only, so it's not interchangeable with video in this case.
  - throwaway2037 2y ago
    Another big driver to move from text to video: It is easier to monetise video via YouTube compared to a blog. People with millions of subscriptions on YouTube aren't creating FE learning material out of the goodness of their hearts; it is a big business. Also, video is almost always lower information density compared to text, so it is easier for your net to capture more customers.
WuxiFingerHold 2y ago
It's not about learning (anymore). It's about consuming content. People spending (wasting) their time on X and YT are not there to learn something but to get their social media (dopamine) fix. I hate YT, X, Insta. Don't even have an account. Some years ago there was really great content on YT, now it's mostly clickbait.
- skeeter2020 2y ago
  There's still lots of great YT content, much of it by the same producers you allude to, and they need your support more than ever with all the slop around them.
dartos 2y ago
I can read pretty fast, but prefer videos for introductions to any new tech. Then if I decide I like it I read the manual.
torginus 2y ago
> web dev influencers The fact that there's influencers for everything nowadays made me realize I'm old. It's super useful that everyone is sharing their opinions and expertise to get that sweet 5 minutes of fame - I just learned how to tile my bathroom after watching a slew of TikToks on the subject, some with millions of views.

by ewzimm 2y ago

wiseowise 2y ago

> That people like video formats isn't really surprising to me since it's everywhere That’s because those “people” are either larping students or kids that want to become programmers. I have never in my 10 year career met a person who said “yeah, I learn my craft from Fireship videos”.

nine_k 2y ago
Likely these videos did not exist when your reference / age group was acquiring these skills. Videos are sort of easier to produce (via screen capture), and are much easier to show the effect of FE things: look, we write code like this, now we can click here, and the page reacts that way. No need to muck with JSFiddle or something. I'm not a fan of videos as a reference medium, but they can be elucidating to those who needs more hand-holding, literally "click here, see the result". Back in the day, a few short videos about Blender helped me quite bit to grasp certain things that were not obvious from descriptions.
- wiseowise 2y ago
  Blender is a gui first program, it makes sense that videos will work for it.
  - nine_k 2y ago
    HTML and CSS are sort of GUI-first, too.
golergka 2y ago
I've learned most of what I know about database internals from MCU lecture course on YouTube. It's great.
- willhslade 2y ago
  Marvel cinematic university?
  - aaronblohowiak 2y ago
    I assume its CMU, Carnegie Mellon u
  - thaumasiotes 2y ago
    You wouldn't believe what else you can learn there.
    - DidYaWipe 2y ago
      I learned a new definition of boredom.
- wiseowise 2y ago
  Famous YouTube influencer checks notes Carnegie Mellon university.

bloomingkales 2y ago

Here's one: https://remix.run/ https://remix.run/ These grifters sell entire courses on the product, that's their game. So when you find an unmaintained Remix app at your company, well, the grifters got the ears of your junior devs :( And they just promote it and promote it: https://kentcdodds.com/blog/a-review-of-my-time-at-remix https://kentcdodds.com/blog/a-review-of-my-time-at-remix https://kentcdodds.com/blog/why-i-love-remix https://kentcdodds.com/blog/why-i-love-remix https://kentcdodds.com/courses https://kentcdodds.com/courses Pure grift. But since most people are decent people they don't know and fall for it, and something like this influencer emerges. They have entire Discords of customers, the same as crypto scams. Edit: I don't know why people would downvote calling out a notable grifter in a thread that extended out to a discussion about influencers. WHICH influencers? Are we scared of that topic? The climate of the JS ecosystem didn't happen accidently. People fall victim to this shit right here on HN, and then write blog posts about what the fuck is wrong with frontend: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39453767 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39453767 (This entire thread reads like deliberate testimonials.) Stop buying this stuff.

numinoid 2y ago
Not sure it's fair to characterize a repo with 6k + commits and the last being 10 hours ago as "pure grift".
- bloomingkales 2y ago
  I think that adds to my point. How does that have so many stars on github? The customers "star" it. Who uses this on a real app? It's alright to slowly accept the bitter truth that grifting scales.
  - numinoid 2y ago
    Not really sure that's relevant. Grift implies an intentional value extraction without providing anything. Using your example: I'm confident that the time spent working on remix and courses related to it resulted in far less monetary gain than spinning out courses on React. If you think Remix is misguided or a bad framework etc... that is very different from grifting. A corollary: Is Deno a grift because it shares the same creator as Node and has a paid product attached to it? In my opinion no but you might disagree... I'm mostly opposed to the idea remix in particular exists purely as a grift - love it or hate it there are far easier ways for someone with the influence of Kent to make money.

Vegenoid 2y ago

These videos are edutainment at best, which is generally not a good way to learn something well enough to be able to actually work with it. A lot of them are pretty much straight up entertainment, where the entertainment value comes from drama and strong opinions. They're totally fine if you know that, but some of their audience does not know that. I've been seeing more and more of a certain kind of person who are into these videos on some Discord servers, and it is clear that they are driven more by culture and style than by the goal of creating some thing, or having a strong understanding of how to make computers do certain things.

jasode 2y ago

>, the idea of learning anything related to coding through a video is extremely frustrating. It's a text medium. I want to look at things, take time, think it over, compare code, follow references, look up functions. That people like video formats isn't really surprising to me since it's everywhere, but I still don't fully understand the appeal. I like (some) programming videos and I'll give my perspective as someone who learned 100% from books and 3-ring binders for old languages like C/C++/C#/Javascript/Python/bash/etc. (The 1980s Microsoft C Compiler manuals were 3-ring binders.) The newer languages I learned with a hybrid of videos + traditional books would be HTML CSS, Apple Swift, and PyTorch with the latest AI toolkits and libraries. The extra dimension that videos offer besides plain text is the live usage of IDE, tools, troubleshooting, etc. For me, watching a dynamic screen with a moving mouse cursor and voiceover seems to activate extra neurons moreso than just reading static text in a book. There's also a lot of "activities in-between the coding" that's helpful such as seeing the programmer looking up something in various pages of documentation, scrolling around, navigating etc. Another useful aspect that's underappreciated is seeing the mistakes the programmer makes during the video recording. E.g. the code doesn't compile because of invalid syntax. Or a config setting is wrong and he troubleshoots what's preventing it from working. In contrast, virtually all text books or blogs of coding are "perfect happy path" outcomes. But real-world programming is messy with broken intermediate states. A lot of videos show the messy steps to get to a working state. The videos that are not that helpful would be the videos of C++ CppCon conference sessions where there are a bunch of static slides with bullet points and the speaker just reads them aloud word-for-word. Although I learned C++ from textbooks, I found videos of Matt Godbolt showing tips & tricks of how to use his Compiler Explorer (http://godbolt.org http://godbolt.org) very helpful. In summary, the artifacts of coding may be the text, but the activity of coding involves a lot more than just the text and that's why some videos can enhance learning.

kunzhi 2y ago
I'm not sure if this is what you intended, but I read this as a great argument in favor of pair programming.
mitthrowaway2 2y ago
Definitely. As long as the videos are uncut, they can be a confidence booster that I'll be able to replicate the result, because I can follow them knowing they won't skip over those little steps that often go without mention. Well, unless they're being sneaky with hotkeys.

2muchcoffeeman 2y ago

I get shorts in my feed and it’s all Front End developers. It’s all stupid JS behaviour and other inconsequential stuff.

zeroq 2y ago

This correlates to my parent post - when my generation started with Flash around 2000 there was no literature on how to programm in Flash, it just happened. So we went to the nearest bookstore and got a bunch of other books on programming. For many Flash developers the bible was Thinking in Java by Bruce Eckel. Most of the source materials for game programming (and that was a lion share of Flash programming) was in C++. I'm not claiming that we were smarter, but by sheer coincidence, most people, even folks like me who skipped school, had very solid fundamentals. And partially due to the fact that it wasn't that lucrative back then. Today most people don't care, IT is just easy money, kids have short attention span and trends are tailored by tiktok videos. All in all, it's just a fashion driven developement.

SkyBelow 2y ago
>I'm not claiming that we were smarter, but by sheer coincidence, most people, even folks like me who skipped school, had very solid fundamentals. Higher barrier of entry should statistically lead to less people making it past and that those who do make it past aren't a random sampling of the initial group making the attempt. While the selection isn't only for intelligence, specifically the subsets of intelligence related to programming, I would doubt any claims it wasn't a factor at all.

koreth1 2y ago

> That people like video formats isn't really surprising to me since it's everywhere, but I still don't fully understand the appeal. Me either, but I have a hunch about why. Are you a fast reader? I am, at least compared to the population at large. And one of the reasons I can't stand video as a format for learning about coding topics is that it is so frustratingly slow compared to my reading speed. To get anywhere close, I have to crank the playback speed up so high that I start having trouble understanding what the presenter is saying. That's on top of other things like poor searchability and no way to copy-paste code snippets. The decline of reading skills, at least in the US, is pretty well-documented. And my hunch is that for the increasingly large number of people coming into the industry who don't read quickly or well, the efficiency of learning from videos is closer to parity with text. What's more, I suspect there's high correlation between lower reading skills and dislike of the act of reading, so videos are a way to avoid having to do something unpleasant. I have no solid evidence to back any of this up, but it seems at least as plausible to me as any other explanations I've run across.

Swizec 2y ago
Alternatively: you can listen to audio while commuting or driving or cleaning or working out. I love audio for higher level things and to get an overview of the topic. Then text to dive into the details.
- ricardobeat 2y ago
  It can be quite difficult to follow programming topics over audio only, so it's not interchangeable with video in this case.
- throwaway2037 2y ago
  Another big driver to move from text to video: It is easier to monetise video via YouTube compared to a blog. People with millions of subscriptions on YouTube aren't creating FE learning material out of the goodness of their hearts; it is a big business. Also, video is almost always lower information density compared to text, so it is easier for your net to capture more customers.

WuxiFingerHold 2y ago

It's not about learning (anymore). It's about consuming content. People spending (wasting) their time on X and YT are not there to learn something but to get their social media (dopamine) fix. I hate YT, X, Insta. Don't even have an account. Some years ago there was really great content on YT, now it's mostly clickbait.

skeeter2020 2y ago
There's still lots of great YT content, much of it by the same producers you allude to, and they need your support more than ever with all the slop around them.

dartos 2y ago

I can read pretty fast, but prefer videos for introductions to any new tech. Then if I decide I like it I read the manual.

torginus 2y ago

> web dev influencers The fact that there's influencers for everything nowadays made me realize I'm old. It's super useful that everyone is sharing their opinions and expertise to get that sweet 5 minutes of fame - I just learned how to tile my bathroom after watching a slew of TikToks on the subject, some with millions of views.