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Livecoding.tv (YC S15) Is Twitch.tv for Coding

218 points by kevin 11y ago

DigitalSea 11y ago
I am confused. I just loaded up the site and a video of a guy playing metal on an electric guitar started livestreaming. Unless he connected his guitar to his computer and code is being written, I don't see how this is live coding... It's the LinuxFromScratch stream: https://www.livecoding.tv/jegas/ https://www.livecoding.tv/jegas/
jamiegreen 11y ago
Hi guys - Jamie here, one of the cofounders of Livecoding.tv. If anyone has any questions about the site feel free to ask me and I will do my best to answer!
- pubby 11y ago
  Why do you require creating accounts in order to view stuff?
  - jamiegreen 11y ago
    Initially we did it because we only had a small server cluster, but you are right, this is a requirement we should remove.
  - fotcorn 11y ago
    Yes thats very annoying don't do that. Requiring login for commenting/chat is ok, but just for viewing is not.
    - jamiegreen 11y ago
      Initially we did it because we only had a small server cluster, but you are right, this is a requirement we should remove.
    - jamiegreen 11y ago
      You should be able to watch livestreams and videos without logging in now. :)
- ystvn 11y ago
  Will you be creating a mobile application for Livecoding.tv? It's not even usable at the moment on iPhone via Safari. Also a suggestion: timestamps would be pretty useful in chat.
  - jamiegreen 11y ago
    Hi - Yes we will definitely be creating a mobile app at some point. Thanks for your suggestion as well about timestamps, if you have any other suggestions you can add them to our Roadmap here: http://roadmap.livecoding.tv/ http://roadmap.livecoding.tv/
    - andresmanz 11y ago
      I'd be happy with an HTML5 video player for now. Is that planned as well? Actually, I think I even preferred that over an app. Edit: Oh, there already is a request for that.
      - jamiegreen 11y ago
        :)
- tyrel 11y ago
  Will you be adding more customization of the "User" or is all customization per channel? It was difficult to figure out how to set an avatar at first, I had to go under my stream page and edit there, rather than in the settings. Maybe I'm confused between the distinction between a user and a stream?
  - jamiegreen 11y ago
    You can think of your channel as like your profile - so that is where the customization happens. It should perhaps be made clearer where you should upload your avatar, thanks for the feedback.
minimaxir 11y ago
I've been doing research into code live streaming since I might do it sometime soon. One of the most important things about live streaming is archiving, so people who aren't online and free at that exact moment can still get value from the stream. Twitch has VODs, YouTube and Periscope auto-archives. I attempted to load the archive of the linked Stephen Wolfram video and hit this: http://i.imgur.com/m1TEJHS.png http://i.imgur.com/m1TEJHS.png Seriously? According to the sign-up blurb on the right of the window, forced-signing-in-to-watch-videos is the intended behavior, which puts a lot of doubt on the startup sign-up metrics provided. I will never use this service.
- jamiegreen 11y ago
  Hey, Jamie here from Livecoding.tv, sorry you don't like the login to watch requirement. This is something we will definitely consider removing in the future. :/
  - ablation 11y ago
    It's put me off immediately, unfortunately.
    - jamiegreen 11y ago
      You should be able to watch livestreams and videos without logging in now. :)
      - meowface 11y ago
        If I'm not mistaken, wasn't there huge criticism of the login requirements when this was first posted on HN? That was the most vocalized feedback I saw back then. Glad to see you guys have realized it's a bad idea though.
        jamiegreen 11y ago
        we try ;) (slow learners!)
panic 11y ago
The tagline is "watch people code products, live". The word "products" appears in almost every piece of copy on the front page. Why not just "watch people code, live"? Why the focus on products? What about open source code, personal projects or other things that will never be sold? Classifying streams by programming language is also kind of odd. Lots of projects use multiple programming languages. A better classification might be what general kind of code is being written (machine learning, graphics, UI, web frontend/backend, games, etc). That said, I'm very interested in this and hope to see it succeed!
- jamiegreen 11y ago
  Hey, Jamie from Livecoding.tv :) We decided to focus on products in the beginning as we really wanted to help people succeed in building something from A-Z, not just learn a portion of it. That said, we definitely have a broader focus now and have people doing all sorts of amazing things with code, so thanks for your suggestion! Classification of streams is also something we are hoping to improve over time so we really appreciate your feedback!
  - zorrb 11y ago
    If the entire point is to watch someone code something from scratch, why is there no dates on the videos? How can you follow a series from beginning to end if you have to randomly guess which order a series is in?
    - jamiegreen 11y ago
      Reply copied from another answer: Hi - frankly the usability around discovering videos right now is not great, I totally recognise that. I appreciate your suggestion and we will definitely be finding ways to improve it, including adding dates
- seivan 11y ago
  I love watching Game Dev channels on Twitch! I hope they get that as a category soon!
innguest 11y ago
Allow me a small tale. I remember on #lisp at Freenode IRC, there was a helpful soul that would help folks by telling them to click a link. Upon landing on the page, the person being helped would see a mirror of the helper's Emacs buffer being updated live as they coded against a Lisp image and the results would show. Lispers, always seeing ahead of everyone else.
- pubby 11y ago
  I used to do this using termcast.org (via telnet). It's a simple and lightweight way to show people what you're coding.
- innguest 11y ago
  Found it, it was back at 2010 it seems: http://chrisdone.com:10001/browse/lisp?events_per_page=50&events_page=124553 http://chrisdone.com:10001/browse/lisp?events_per_page=50&ev... The "helper"'s screen name was "nixeagle" and his emacs mirror was at http://i.nixeagle.net:8080/t http://i.nixeagle.net:8080/t
rudolf0 11y ago
I know there are good reasons why it's not included, but a pet peeve of mine is when sites like these do not allow you to sort by viewer count. I think sorting options would be useful for this, especially once more people start streaming on it.
- jamiegreen 11y ago
  Definitely something we should add - thanks! You can actually already sort by viewer count for videos, but not currently for livestreams.
Akkuma 11y ago
I've done coding through twitch and checked out livecoding.tv before deciding whether I wanted to stick to twitch or move there, since I do/did game streaming on twitch. I ran across several concerns about livecoding.tv such as they don't show you the current viewer count of a stream while listing the streams, they show only the total views, and they specifically require logging in to accomplish anything on the site. I ultimately went with Twitch as Livecoding.tv has a fairly small userbase, the above negatives from livecoding that haven't changed in months despite the feedback, my app is gaming related, Twitch offers me bots that can help manage and improve the experience, and finally it can help grow my viewerbase for non-coding related streams. Edit: For proof that they were asked to remove the login requirement months ago http://www.reddit.com/r/WatchPeopleCode/comments/2zmw29/i_am_jamie_from_livecodingtv_here_to_answer_your/cpkuup9 http://www.reddit.com/r/WatchPeopleCode/comments/2zmw29/i_am...
- jamiegreen 11y ago
  Hey - sorry we have not addressed your feedback, its crap and we should be doing better :/ All I can say is we are a small team doing the best we can, and we have had some growing pains. However, that is really no excuse so I am sorry about that. Yes we do have a relatively small userbase relative to Twitch, but I guess the reason you would want to come to our site is that our community is focussed on coding, not just entertainment. Edit: you should be able to watch streams without logging in now.
  - Akkuma 11y ago
    I just want to clarify that wasn't me who originally made that request. I ran across it while reading up on livecoding.tv awhile back. You don't see much content not served up on YouTube, unless it is a subscription or pay per video. There are certainly a ton of coding videos, yet you don't see a coding centric site. Twitch is already moving toward expanding into other categories such as programming and game development. The only way I see livecoding.tv beating Twitch is if one can get more regular viewers due to the focus on coding and then offer better features around coding, perhaps things like monetization of past videos and tools to edit them. Perhaps a read only ide similar to collaborative editors that allows viewers to follow along with their own font settings, theme, and navigate through the project (I could expand upon that in a lot more detail). I do wish you guys the best of luck as I'd like more Twitch alternatives. I'm also glad to see the login requirement gone and will try it out to see how many viewers I get without relying upon WatchPeopleCode.
rexf 11y ago
Is there any special consideration/feature to help prevent streamers from sharing secrets (keys, tokens, pw, etc)? Sharing secrets is easily done by accident and can go unnoticed by the streamer.
- jamiegreen 11y ago
  Hmmm this is not currently something we have any special feature to address currently, except that if you realise you have shown the world a password or credit card details ( it has happened!) they the best thing to do is stop the stream and delete the video immediately. We are currently exploring other ways we can help prevent this.
  - simcop2387 11y ago
    Letting people have a 30-60 second delay in the stream might help a lot in being able to go and remove it before damage has been done. aside from that I don't have any ideas myself
    - jamiegreen 11y ago
      Hmmmm not a bad idea, though that would put some friction in the interactive nature of it, which is really important to us. We haven't had a lot of problems with people showing passwords etc so far as people either 1. have two screens or 2. just use window capture to avoid showing something they don't want to.
      - simcop2387 11y ago
        window capture sounds like a pretty good suggestion for the time being. It'll at least mitigate what can be revealed. It wouldn't work for everything but there's definitely a balance to be found I bet. The delay is essentially how traditional broadcasters manage it (with a shorter delay since there's someone monitoring it separately) so it might still work out for this.
  - choward 11y ago
AustinScript 11y ago
I tried it. I wasn't a fan of streaming @ 15 FPS w/ a max bitrate of 1,500 Kbps.
- jamiegreen 11y ago
  Sorry you didnt have a good experience. :/ Did you have problems with your stream quality? Normally our setting should be enough to have a good quality stream and if you have trouble you can get some help from our support team on skype to make sure your screen is clear and readable.
SeanAnderson 11y ago
I use Twitch.TV all the time (I have it up right now) and I signed up for livecoding.tv when I initially heard of it, but backed out before committing to anything. My #1 concern is this: On Twitch.TV I would never watch someone who is completely quiet. Half the time I have Twitch up as a passive form of entertainment. Similar to a radio talkshow going on in the background. When I'm developing software... I don't talk. I might do an odd grumble to myself every once in a while, but the loudest thing in the room, by far, is my keyboard. Are you expecting developers to talk out their thoughts as they type? Are you expecting people to just stare at a quiet developer's workflow and try to glean information? Also, this comic strip comes to mind: http://www.commitstrip.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Strip-Conf%C3%A9rence-de-champion-650-finalenglish.jpg http://www.commitstrip.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Strip-... TL;DR: Why would I as a developer want to use your service? What do I gain from it?
- Akkuma 11y ago
  > When I'm developing software... I don't talk. I might do an odd grumble to myself every once in a while, but the loudest thing in the room, by far, is my keyboard. I have previous experience streaming and so immediately got myself in a mindset of talk talk talk. In fact, I stopped working on my project and had an hour or so conversation with viewer/viewers about JavaScript frameworks and a bit of a deep dive on React. To be fair, I've always been someone who yells at the screen while gaming, so extending that kind of behavior of saying what you're thinking while coding isn't too hard for me.
  - fallat 11y ago
    What's your stream? :) I'm trying to "get into" JavaScript again after abandoning its brokenness. I'm looking to see people's workflow and you seem like a knowledgeable person.
- codemac 11y ago
  When I play video games, I don't talk unless there is someone sitting near me watching me play. I imagine the same would be true for programming.
- 11y ago
jnhuynh 11y ago
Why are so many of the streamer profile field's required? Some of the fields contribute little to the streamer's channel and yet are required. E.g. "Languages I want to learn" and "Favorite Line of code"
- jamiegreen 11y ago
  Good point - I think we just wanted a balance between having an empty profile and having too many requirements, but perhaps we leaned too far in the required fields direction!
revanx_ 11y ago
"You don't have adobe flash" " please download it" Yeah sorry no, it's why I don't use twitch and it's why I won't use livecoding.tv
- jamiegreen 11y ago
  Yeah I would need to check with my cofounder why we had to use flash there - but I agree it would be better if we could get rid of it!
  - Akkuma 11y ago
    This is because HLS isn't universally available on desktop browsers and I assume you're using that or rtmp, which is even worse and has no real compatibility anywhere without flash. http://www.jwplayer.com/html5/hls/ http://www.jwplayer.com/html5/hls/ I myself had to deal heavily with this while working on live streaming and dealing with the client side.
    - jamiegreen 11y ago
      yeah RTMP...
- aw3c2 11y ago
  You might like https://github.com/chrippa/livestreamer https://github.com/chrippa/livestreamer
  - revanx_ 11y ago
    It's great however there is no plugin yet available for livecoding.
    - mumphster 11y ago
      https://github.com/chrippa/livestreamer/pull/978 https://github.com/chrippa/livestreamer/pull/978 just submitted a PR, enjoy!
0x524 11y ago
Looks really, really interesting, but I don't really feel like installing Flash. There's this thing called Livestreamer that works really well (not only) with Twitch.
- jamiegreen 11y ago
  Yeah it would be good to get rid of it at some point - need to check with my cofounder why we use it but I agree flash isn't great.
smaili 11y ago
Does anyone know what technology is used to providing streaming? Both in terms of the broadcaster and the viewers. There doesn't seem to be any big open source projects in this space from what I can tell.
- jamiegreen 11y ago
  we are doing RTMP streaming.
- nacs 11y ago
  Check out nginx-rtmp [1] and ffserver [2] (from the ffmpeg team). [1]: https://github.com/arut/nginx-rtmp-module https://github.com/arut/nginx-rtmp-module [2]: https://www.ffmpeg.org/ffserver.html https://www.ffmpeg.org/ffserver.html
alexnking 11y ago
I'm a huge fan of streaming coding, mostly because of Markus Persson and the Ludum Dare streams (one of the first http://www.twitch.tv/notch/b/293076467 http://www.twitch.tv/notch/b/293076467 where he builds a dungeon crawler, skip ahead a bit). The big downside for me though is the login requirement just to watch - I don't think I'd watch Twitch if I had to login just to see streams. I think getting rid of that would really help you guys grow - code streams are pretty addictive once you start watching.
- jamiegreen 11y ago
  If you check now you should be able to watch without logging in.
tux 11y ago
This is awesome :-) Thanks for the link!
- jamiegreen 11y ago
  Glad you like it!
curiously 11y ago
Might as well make a twitch clone for people painting fences
- jamiegreen 11y ago
  :/ sorry you think that!
  - panorama 11y ago
    Yeah, GP post is unnecessarily negative. I think this is a great idea and knew there was always a space for it. Twitch has really changed the entertainment scene (millions of people individually consuming hours of streamed content a day). More importantly, there's a large subset of Twitch streamers who don't just stream for entertainment purposes, but for education as well. Often times, watching someone do a thing is a lot more instructive than reading about someone doing a thing. There are people getting much better at video games by watching informative streamers. There's no reason to think that, eventually, live stream coding will be another popular form of learning to code as well. GP post makes me sad, honestly, due to how willfully ignorant that opinion appears to be and the fact that it's so unnecessarily negative towards something that can legitimately help a bunch of people.
    - jamiegreen 11y ago
      Thanks - nice to get positive feedback as well :)
- dagw 11y ago
  Maybe not fences, but a twitch clone for people painting pictures on the other hand might be a hit some people.
Matt3o12_ 11y ago
It'd be awesome if they supported more timezones. It is always annoying to calculate the time difference
- jamiegreen 11y ago
  Yeah currently the schedule 'should' calculate your timezone and display streams on your time - however it is currently not perfect ;)
  - Matt3o12_ 11y ago
    Yeah, I'm quite aware of the struggle with timezones. You apparently try to pick the timezone based on my ip address, which is often good enough, but there are better solutions. I think you should be able to get the timezone with javascript and convert it on the client. This is the best solution IMHO but that requires javascript. You should also aways offer a dropdown dialog with _all timezones_. You currently only have 5 timezones to choose from, none which I live in. All in all, you should do: If the user has already selected a timezone, use this one. This is the most accurate option, you'll ever get. If that was not provided, try to use javascript. If the user does not use Javascript, fall back to the IP address.
    - jamiegreen 11y ago
      Alright thanks for the tip! Sincerely appreciated :)
liviu- 11y ago
I wish I could filter videos by whether there is any live talking on the stream -- I prefer listening to someone walking me through their thought process along with watching them code.
- jamiegreen 11y ago
  Good call - we should add something like a 'silent' tag that people could add.
dzhiurgis 11y ago
The benefit of watching it live is that you could potentially ask questions. The benefit of recording is that you can increase the playback speed or fast forward. Audio annotation is a bonus in both circumstances.
- jamiegreen 11y ago
  Totally agree!
joeyspn 11y ago
I'm curious about the way they power the streams... I see they're using django as web framework, but for live streaming... which media server? looks like Nginx's rtmp module in dedicated servers? why a flash videoplayer and not html5?
- protopete 11y ago
  HTML5 video doesn't work with live video unfortunately, while flash RTMP streaming does. Alternatives include MPEG DASH and Apple HTTP Live Streaming, but not all browsers support them.
  - joeyspn 11y ago
    I recall that being a limiting factor 3-4 years ago when I was working with RTMP & P2P/RTMFP, but in mid 2015? I thought HTML5 was ready for live video... Reading now about Media Source Extensions (I just discovered the API) I guess we're finally around the corner... =) https://w3c.github.io/media-source/ https://w3c.github.io/media-source/
widforss 11y ago
Hey, looks cool. But Flash? Seriously guys ...
- jamiegreen 11y ago
  Copied from another reply: Yeah it would be good to get rid of it at some point - need to check with my cofounder why we use it but I agree flash isn't great.
reledi 11y ago
IIRC this started out on reddit with a Google spreadsheet to schedule streams. They've come a long way, I'm excited for the journey!
- jamiegreen 11y ago
  ah the good old days of the Google Spreadsheet (well 3 months but it seems like an age :)
machbio 11y ago
I understand, the website is limited to coding - but what are the features that make it different from twitch.tv.. until now, I would always look at the streams on http://www.reddit.com/r/WatchPeopleCode/ http://www.reddit.com/r/WatchPeopleCode/ to watch people code.. I dont see, this being any different from twitch
- jamiegreen 11y ago
  I don't think we are trying to compete with Twitch on features, what differentiates us is our focus on live education rather than being for entertainment (though some streams can be pretty amusing!). Further, members of our community are passionate about coding or learning to code, so it is a different audience than Twitch's audience.
  - mylons 11y ago
    but i can go to twitch and find live coders. why am i going to another platform when i can just use twitch for everything?
lifeisstillgood 11y ago
Ok, I'm going to bite. And as I am clearly a dinosaur, it's a big bite, but ... Why?! Could someone explain the benefits to watching someone code? It would be like watching someone write a novel. Mostly thinking? Could you recommend the best one or two - I should at least watch an exemplar before rejecting this out of hand (never had the like in my day, watch someone punch cards out? like watching this new fangled wireless radio). I guess It's like people listening to game music, will be mainstream in six months
neovive 11y ago
This looks great! I used to watch some live streams on http://www.watchpeoplecode.com http://www.watchpeoplecode.com, but stopped due to time constraints. There is definitely a lot of value in watching the workflow nuances of experienced devs, but I found that the value was too few and far between. I still watch from time to time, but found pre-recorded/edited video tutorials to be more efficient, although many of the nuances and passive learning benefits are lost. Perhaps, edited livestreams would work well.
- ninjakeyboard 11y ago
  I keep intending to buy this - it's Kent Beck writing code using TDD. https://pragprog.com/screencasts/v-kbtdd/test-driven-development https://pragprog.com/screencasts/v-kbtdd/test-driven-develop...
mumphster 11y ago
I've done a few streams on this site now (my channel is at http://livecoding.tv/ell http://livecoding.tv/ell) and my biggest issue so far is the bitrate enforcement. My bitrate fluctuates randomly sometimes and the website straight up boots me off my stream and shuts it down until I can reconnect. Really annoying. I've stopped using it as much mainly because of that.
- jamiegreen 11y ago
  Hey, sorry you had a bit of trouble streaming. If you are getting errors, you can add 'livecodingtv' on skype and someone should be able to help you with your setup!
mumphster 11y ago
I've done a few streams on this site now (my channel is at http://livecoding.tv/ell http://livecoding.tv/ell) and my biggest issue so far is the bitrate enforcement. My bitrate fluctuates randomly sometimes and the website straight up boots me off my stream and shuts it down until I can reconnect. Really annoying. I've stopped using it as much mainly because of that.
hayksaakian 11y ago
Hey Founders! Is there any way to embed your player on another website? I see you use jwplayer, and I'm not sure how to embed that unless i mangle together some javascript myself. Something like an iframe that i cant feed livecoding.tv/:streamer/:embed would be nice (Background, i work on a stream browsing website: overrustle.com and some of my users requested to have streams from your site embedded there) PS: chat embed would be great too!
- jamiegreen 11y ago
  Hey! Not currently able to embed livestreams or chats, but this is something we definitely have in mind to develop, its just a question of priorities. You can request this feature here: http://roadmap.livecoding.tv/ http://roadmap.livecoding.tv/ Good luck with your site - looks cool :)
  - hayksaakian 11y ago
    Thanks! I found the most relevant idea here, and I upvoted it "API – Technical Specification May 2015" http://roadmap.livecoding.tv/?p=45 http://roadmap.livecoding.tv/?p=45
cmdrfred 11y ago
Go to the site first thing I see is black-dragon-walking though-flames.gif (with "JEGAS MAN-CAVE stand by" scrawed in the top right) and some barely audible speech over terrible (pan flutes, really?) music.
- jamiegreen 11y ago
  Oh dear :/ I guess you saw jegas when he went for a smoke break... sorry your first experience wasn't the best!
anonbanker 11y ago
The first company to do this without making me install Adobe Flash (i.e. use webrtc and other existing technologies to do this) will be the first site I ever use. Right now, when I see "You must install Adobe Flash to use this site", I close the tab and never return.
- nindalf 11y ago
  FWIW, you can use Twitch without installing Flash in certain cases. If you happen to be using OS X and Safari, you can add "/hls" to any URL to have it play without Flash. If you're not averse to installing software, you could look into Livestreamer [1] that plays the stream in VLC. The advantage in both cases being improved fidelity and reduced battery consumption. [1] - https://livestreamer.readthedocs.org/en/latest/install.html https://livestreamer.readthedocs.org/en/latest/install.html
  - mumphster 11y ago
    Just submitted a PR for livecoding.tv support as well: https://github.com/chrippa/livestreamer/pull/978 https://github.com/chrippa/livestreamer/pull/978 I coded it live as well (heh), you can check out the vod on my channel https://livecoding.tv/ell https://livecoding.tv/ell
flippant 11y ago
Why not just use Youtube? If you think setting up OBS is too much of a hassle, you can use Hangouts on Air with the screen-sharing feature. I've been streaming myself coding for the past two months. There have been no hiccups.
- jamiegreen 11y ago
  Each to their own ;) We are trying to build a community focussed on live coding education, which is more focussed than you will find on Youtube for example.
- jamiegreen 11y ago
  Each to their own ;) We are trying to build a community focussed on live coding education, which is more focussed than you will find on Youtube for example.
kup0 11y ago
I really love this idea, as someone still in the early stages of learning programming.
- jamiegreen 11y ago
  Makes me very happy to hear that :)
rhgraysonii 11y ago
Any plans for Linux support?
- jamiegreen 11y ago
  you can already stream from Linux, just use this software: https://obsproject.com/download https://obsproject.com/download
dylanjermiah 11y ago
What are the benefits of live a opposed to pre recorded? Ability to ask questions and get immediate responses?
- jamiegreen 11y ago
  Pretty much! The interaction is a key part of it.
RobotCaleb 11y ago
I had a very poor experience with one of the founders from livecoding while he was courting me to stream there. I asked for basic information such as whether a potential viewer requires a login to view a stream (Yes) and whether a potential viewer requires a login to participate in chat on a stream (Yes) and he was very abrasive and offputting. When I said I wasn't comfortable participating due to his attitude he claimed I wouldn't be a good fit for streaming and derided me for not just creating an account and figuring out the answers through trial and error. When asked I suggest people stream on youtube.
- supercoder 11y ago
  Yeah , wasn't this site on HN a couple weeks ago with Wolfram coding ? I remember it as the 'site that tried to make me sign up to watch a stream.'. So this story doesn't sound surprising..
Kiro 11y ago
How about a plugin to your IDE where you can share certain folders live to your audience so they can jump around the source code while you stream. Or a way for the streamer to paste syntax highlighted snippets live to their audience.
manyanimals 11y ago
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xytop 11y ago
I'm wondering if there are people who are streaming their closed source code..that might be against their company's privacy agreement. So in theory majority of streams should be about opensource projects.
bx_ 11y ago
Looks cool, but I was a bit miffed by the use of the WeChat logo as a chat icon on your /livestreams/ page (next to "join Q&A live chat") (see: http://www.wechat.com/en/ http://www.wechat.com/en/) when in fact you are using Candy Chat (http://candy-chat.github.io/candy/ http://candy-chat.github.io/candy/) Looks like this was done somewhat intentionally, since in your HTML you have <i class="fa fa-weixin"></i> (Weixin is the Chinese name for WeChat)
drakonka 11y ago
I've never streamed coding before (or anything) and ended up going with livecoding.tv vs Twitch to start with because of the smaller userbase (I guess it felt a little less intimidating...like there was a big chance that nobody would even see my stupid boring stream ;)) It's been pretty good so far, though I've only streamed a couple of times. People actually DID end up watching the stream and participating/asking questions about the project. So far the one annoying thing with the site has been that there's a video autoplaying each time I go to the home page. I want to go straight to my dashboard or at least stream view when already logged in, and ideally not have an autoplaying video/banner taking up the entire space of the home page above the fold.
codygman 11y ago
Aww, no Haskell category. Please add one? :)
- jamiegreen 11y ago
  We still get people coding haskell! I think for us it is difficult but we have to draw the line somewhere, as everyone wants their favourite language to be a top category.... not sure how best to solve this at the moment!
manyanimals 11y ago
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dj_doh 11y ago
Collaborative a.k.a Pair Programming is really neat. I've done that in patches and found it really interesting and insightful. But that was some 6yrs ago.
Udo 11y ago
@jamiegreen, if you're reading this: - your notification email should not come from "support" (at least give the sender a good human-readable name) - it's good that you're showing a featured stream on the front page but there seems to be no way to get to their profile page from there Overall I found the site has come along nicely since I last visited, good job!
willyyr 11y ago
After registering yesterday my inbox got flooded with email notifications. I'm unable to switch them off from my mobile since the page is somehow broken. Please add a "disable all" link to the emails without the need to log in.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

218 points by kevin 11y ago

I am confused. I just loaded up the site and a video of a guy playing metal on an electric guitar started livestreaming. Unless he connected his guitar to his computer and code is being written, I don't see how this is live coding... It's the LinuxFromScratch stream: https://www.livecoding.tv/jegas/ https://www.livecoding.tv/jegas/

jamiegreen 11y ago

Hi guys - Jamie here, one of the cofounders of Livecoding.tv. If anyone has any questions about the site feel free to ask me and I will do my best to answer!

pubby 11y ago
Why do you require creating accounts in order to view stuff?
- jamiegreen 11y ago
  Initially we did it because we only had a small server cluster, but you are right, this is a requirement we should remove.
- fotcorn 11y ago
  Yes thats very annoying don't do that. Requiring login for commenting/chat is ok, but just for viewing is not.
  - jamiegreen 11y ago
    Initially we did it because we only had a small server cluster, but you are right, this is a requirement we should remove.
  - jamiegreen 11y ago
    You should be able to watch livestreams and videos without logging in now. :)
ystvn 11y ago
Will you be creating a mobile application for Livecoding.tv? It's not even usable at the moment on iPhone via Safari. Also a suggestion: timestamps would be pretty useful in chat.
- jamiegreen 11y ago
  Hi - Yes we will definitely be creating a mobile app at some point. Thanks for your suggestion as well about timestamps, if you have any other suggestions you can add them to our Roadmap here: http://roadmap.livecoding.tv/ http://roadmap.livecoding.tv/
  - andresmanz 11y ago
    I'd be happy with an HTML5 video player for now. Is that planned as well? Actually, I think I even preferred that over an app. Edit: Oh, there already is a request for that.
    - jamiegreen 11y ago
      :)
tyrel 11y ago
Will you be adding more customization of the "User" or is all customization per channel? It was difficult to figure out how to set an avatar at first, I had to go under my stream page and edit there, rather than in the settings. Maybe I'm confused between the distinction between a user and a stream?
- jamiegreen 11y ago
  You can think of your channel as like your profile - so that is where the customization happens. It should perhaps be made clearer where you should upload your avatar, thanks for the feedback.

minimaxir 11y ago

I've been doing research into code live streaming since I might do it sometime soon. One of the most important things about live streaming is archiving, so people who aren't online and free at that exact moment can still get value from the stream. Twitch has VODs, YouTube and Periscope auto-archives. I attempted to load the archive of the linked Stephen Wolfram video and hit this: http://i.imgur.com/m1TEJHS.png http://i.imgur.com/m1TEJHS.png Seriously? According to the sign-up blurb on the right of the window, forced-signing-in-to-watch-videos is the intended behavior, which puts a lot of doubt on the startup sign-up metrics provided. I will never use this service.

jamiegreen 11y ago
Hey, Jamie here from Livecoding.tv, sorry you don't like the login to watch requirement. This is something we will definitely consider removing in the future. :/
- ablation 11y ago
  It's put me off immediately, unfortunately.
  - jamiegreen 11y ago
    You should be able to watch livestreams and videos without logging in now. :)
    - meowface 11y ago
      If I'm not mistaken, wasn't there huge criticism of the login requirements when this was first posted on HN? That was the most vocalized feedback I saw back then. Glad to see you guys have realized it's a bad idea though.
      - jamiegreen 11y ago
        we try ;) (slow learners!)

panic 11y ago

The tagline is "watch people code products, live". The word "products" appears in almost every piece of copy on the front page. Why not just "watch people code, live"? Why the focus on products? What about open source code, personal projects or other things that will never be sold? Classifying streams by programming language is also kind of odd. Lots of projects use multiple programming languages. A better classification might be what general kind of code is being written (machine learning, graphics, UI, web frontend/backend, games, etc). That said, I'm very interested in this and hope to see it succeed!

jamiegreen 11y ago
Hey, Jamie from Livecoding.tv :) We decided to focus on products in the beginning as we really wanted to help people succeed in building something from A-Z, not just learn a portion of it. That said, we definitely have a broader focus now and have people doing all sorts of amazing things with code, so thanks for your suggestion! Classification of streams is also something we are hoping to improve over time so we really appreciate your feedback!
- zorrb 11y ago
  If the entire point is to watch someone code something from scratch, why is there no dates on the videos? How can you follow a series from beginning to end if you have to randomly guess which order a series is in?
  - jamiegreen 11y ago
    Reply copied from another answer: Hi - frankly the usability around discovering videos right now is not great, I totally recognise that. I appreciate your suggestion and we will definitely be finding ways to improve it, including adding dates
seivan 11y ago
I love watching Game Dev channels on Twitch! I hope they get that as a category soon!

innguest 11y ago

Allow me a small tale. I remember on #lisp at Freenode IRC, there was a helpful soul that would help folks by telling them to click a link. Upon landing on the page, the person being helped would see a mirror of the helper's Emacs buffer being updated live as they coded against a Lisp image and the results would show. Lispers, always seeing ahead of everyone else.

pubby 11y ago
I used to do this using termcast.org (via telnet). It's a simple and lightweight way to show people what you're coding.
innguest 11y ago
Found it, it was back at 2010 it seems: http://chrisdone.com:10001/browse/lisp?events_per_page=50&events_page=124553 http://chrisdone.com:10001/browse/lisp?events_per_page=50&ev... The "helper"'s screen name was "nixeagle" and his emacs mirror was at http://i.nixeagle.net:8080/t http://i.nixeagle.net:8080/t

rudolf0 11y ago

I know there are good reasons why it's not included, but a pet peeve of mine is when sites like these do not allow you to sort by viewer count. I think sorting options would be useful for this, especially once more people start streaming on it.

jamiegreen 11y ago
Definitely something we should add - thanks! You can actually already sort by viewer count for videos, but not currently for livestreams.

Akkuma 11y ago

I've done coding through twitch and checked out livecoding.tv before deciding whether I wanted to stick to twitch or move there, since I do/did game streaming on twitch. I ran across several concerns about livecoding.tv such as they don't show you the current viewer count of a stream while listing the streams, they show only the total views, and they specifically require logging in to accomplish anything on the site. I ultimately went with Twitch as Livecoding.tv has a fairly small userbase, the above negatives from livecoding that haven't changed in months despite the feedback, my app is gaming related, Twitch offers me bots that can help manage and improve the experience, and finally it can help grow my viewerbase for non-coding related streams. Edit: For proof that they were asked to remove the login requirement months ago http://www.reddit.com/r/WatchPeopleCode/comments/2zmw29/i_am_jamie_from_livecodingtv_here_to_answer_your/cpkuup9 http://www.reddit.com/r/WatchPeopleCode/comments/2zmw29/i_am...

jamiegreen 11y ago
Hey - sorry we have not addressed your feedback, its crap and we should be doing better :/ All I can say is we are a small team doing the best we can, and we have had some growing pains. However, that is really no excuse so I am sorry about that. Yes we do have a relatively small userbase relative to Twitch, but I guess the reason you would want to come to our site is that our community is focussed on coding, not just entertainment. Edit: you should be able to watch streams without logging in now.
- Akkuma 11y ago
  I just want to clarify that wasn't me who originally made that request. I ran across it while reading up on livecoding.tv awhile back. You don't see much content not served up on YouTube, unless it is a subscription or pay per video. There are certainly a ton of coding videos, yet you don't see a coding centric site. Twitch is already moving toward expanding into other categories such as programming and game development. The only way I see livecoding.tv beating Twitch is if one can get more regular viewers due to the focus on coding and then offer better features around coding, perhaps things like monetization of past videos and tools to edit them. Perhaps a read only ide similar to collaborative editors that allows viewers to follow along with their own font settings, theme, and navigate through the project (I could expand upon that in a lot more detail). I do wish you guys the best of luck as I'd like more Twitch alternatives. I'm also glad to see the login requirement gone and will try it out to see how many viewers I get without relying upon WatchPeopleCode.

rexf 11y ago

Is there any special consideration/feature to help prevent streamers from sharing secrets (keys, tokens, pw, etc)? Sharing secrets is easily done by accident and can go unnoticed by the streamer.

jamiegreen 11y ago
Hmmm this is not currently something we have any special feature to address currently, except that if you realise you have shown the world a password or credit card details ( it has happened!) they the best thing to do is stop the stream and delete the video immediately. We are currently exploring other ways we can help prevent this.
- simcop2387 11y ago
  Letting people have a 30-60 second delay in the stream might help a lot in being able to go and remove it before damage has been done. aside from that I don't have any ideas myself
  - jamiegreen 11y ago
    Hmmmm not a bad idea, though that would put some friction in the interactive nature of it, which is really important to us. We haven't had a lot of problems with people showing passwords etc so far as people either 1. have two screens or 2. just use window capture to avoid showing something they don't want to.
    - simcop2387 11y ago
      window capture sounds like a pretty good suggestion for the time being. It'll at least mitigate what can be revealed. It wouldn't work for everything but there's definitely a balance to be found I bet. The delay is essentially how traditional broadcasters manage it (with a shorter delay since there's someone monitoring it separately) so it might still work out for this.
- choward 11y ago

AustinScript 11y ago

I tried it. I wasn't a fan of streaming @ 15 FPS w/ a max bitrate of 1,500 Kbps.

jamiegreen 11y ago
Sorry you didnt have a good experience. :/ Did you have problems with your stream quality? Normally our setting should be enough to have a good quality stream and if you have trouble you can get some help from our support team on skype to make sure your screen is clear and readable.

SeanAnderson 11y ago

I use Twitch.TV all the time (I have it up right now) and I signed up for livecoding.tv when I initially heard of it, but backed out before committing to anything. My #1 concern is this: On Twitch.TV I would never watch someone who is completely quiet. Half the time I have Twitch up as a passive form of entertainment. Similar to a radio talkshow going on in the background. When I'm developing software... I don't talk. I might do an odd grumble to myself every once in a while, but the loudest thing in the room, by far, is my keyboard. Are you expecting developers to talk out their thoughts as they type? Are you expecting people to just stare at a quiet developer's workflow and try to glean information? Also, this comic strip comes to mind: http://www.commitstrip.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Strip-Conf%C3%A9rence-de-champion-650-finalenglish.jpg http://www.commitstrip.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Strip-... TL;DR: Why would I as a developer want to use your service? What do I gain from it?

Akkuma 11y ago
> When I'm developing software... I don't talk. I might do an odd grumble to myself every once in a while, but the loudest thing in the room, by far, is my keyboard. I have previous experience streaming and so immediately got myself in a mindset of talk talk talk. In fact, I stopped working on my project and had an hour or so conversation with viewer/viewers about JavaScript frameworks and a bit of a deep dive on React. To be fair, I've always been someone who yells at the screen while gaming, so extending that kind of behavior of saying what you're thinking while coding isn't too hard for me.
- fallat 11y ago
  What's your stream? :) I'm trying to "get into" JavaScript again after abandoning its brokenness. I'm looking to see people's workflow and you seem like a knowledgeable person.
codemac 11y ago
When I play video games, I don't talk unless there is someone sitting near me watching me play. I imagine the same would be true for programming.
11y ago

jnhuynh 11y ago

Why are so many of the streamer profile field's required? Some of the fields contribute little to the streamer's channel and yet are required. E.g. "Languages I want to learn" and "Favorite Line of code"

jamiegreen 11y ago
Good point - I think we just wanted a balance between having an empty profile and having too many requirements, but perhaps we leaned too far in the required fields direction!

revanx_ 11y ago

"You don't have adobe flash" " please download it" Yeah sorry no, it's why I don't use twitch and it's why I won't use livecoding.tv

jamiegreen 11y ago
Yeah I would need to check with my cofounder why we had to use flash there - but I agree it would be better if we could get rid of it!
- Akkuma 11y ago
  This is because HLS isn't universally available on desktop browsers and I assume you're using that or rtmp, which is even worse and has no real compatibility anywhere without flash. http://www.jwplayer.com/html5/hls/ http://www.jwplayer.com/html5/hls/ I myself had to deal heavily with this while working on live streaming and dealing with the client side.
  - jamiegreen 11y ago
    yeah RTMP...
aw3c2 11y ago
You might like https://github.com/chrippa/livestreamer https://github.com/chrippa/livestreamer
- revanx_ 11y ago
  It's great however there is no plugin yet available for livecoding.
  - mumphster 11y ago
    https://github.com/chrippa/livestreamer/pull/978 https://github.com/chrippa/livestreamer/pull/978 just submitted a PR, enjoy!

0x524 11y ago

Looks really, really interesting, but I don't really feel like installing Flash. There's this thing called Livestreamer that works really well (not only) with Twitch.

jamiegreen 11y ago
Yeah it would be good to get rid of it at some point - need to check with my cofounder why we use it but I agree flash isn't great.

smaili 11y ago

Does anyone know what technology is used to providing streaming? Both in terms of the broadcaster and the viewers. There doesn't seem to be any big open source projects in this space from what I can tell.

jamiegreen 11y ago
we are doing RTMP streaming.
nacs 11y ago
Check out nginx-rtmp [1] and ffserver [2] (from the ffmpeg team). [1]: https://github.com/arut/nginx-rtmp-module https://github.com/arut/nginx-rtmp-module [2]: https://www.ffmpeg.org/ffserver.html https://www.ffmpeg.org/ffserver.html

alexnking 11y ago

I'm a huge fan of streaming coding, mostly because of Markus Persson and the Ludum Dare streams (one of the first http://www.twitch.tv/notch/b/293076467 http://www.twitch.tv/notch/b/293076467 where he builds a dungeon crawler, skip ahead a bit). The big downside for me though is the login requirement just to watch - I don't think I'd watch Twitch if I had to login just to see streams. I think getting rid of that would really help you guys grow - code streams are pretty addictive once you start watching.

jamiegreen 11y ago
If you check now you should be able to watch without logging in.

tux 11y ago

This is awesome :-) Thanks for the link!

jamiegreen 11y ago
Glad you like it!

curiously 11y ago

Might as well make a twitch clone for people painting fences

jamiegreen 11y ago
:/ sorry you think that!
- panorama 11y ago
  Yeah, GP post is unnecessarily negative. I think this is a great idea and knew there was always a space for it. Twitch has really changed the entertainment scene (millions of people individually consuming hours of streamed content a day). More importantly, there's a large subset of Twitch streamers who don't just stream for entertainment purposes, but for education as well. Often times, watching someone do a thing is a lot more instructive than reading about someone doing a thing. There are people getting much better at video games by watching informative streamers. There's no reason to think that, eventually, live stream coding will be another popular form of learning to code as well. GP post makes me sad, honestly, due to how willfully ignorant that opinion appears to be and the fact that it's so unnecessarily negative towards something that can legitimately help a bunch of people.
  - jamiegreen 11y ago
    Thanks - nice to get positive feedback as well :)
dagw 11y ago
Maybe not fences, but a twitch clone for people painting pictures on the other hand might be a hit some people.

Matt3o12_ 11y ago

It'd be awesome if they supported more timezones. It is always annoying to calculate the time difference

jamiegreen 11y ago
Yeah currently the schedule 'should' calculate your timezone and display streams on your time - however it is currently not perfect ;)
- Matt3o12_ 11y ago
  Yeah, I'm quite aware of the struggle with timezones. You apparently try to pick the timezone based on my ip address, which is often good enough, but there are better solutions. I think you should be able to get the timezone with javascript and convert it on the client. This is the best solution IMHO but that requires javascript. You should also aways offer a dropdown dialog with _all timezones_. You currently only have 5 timezones to choose from, none which I live in. All in all, you should do: If the user has already selected a timezone, use this one. This is the most accurate option, you'll ever get. If that was not provided, try to use javascript. If the user does not use Javascript, fall back to the IP address.
  - jamiegreen 11y ago
    Alright thanks for the tip! Sincerely appreciated :)

liviu- 11y ago

I wish I could filter videos by whether there is any live talking on the stream -- I prefer listening to someone walking me through their thought process along with watching them code.

jamiegreen 11y ago
Good call - we should add something like a 'silent' tag that people could add.

dzhiurgis 11y ago

The benefit of watching it live is that you could potentially ask questions. The benefit of recording is that you can increase the playback speed or fast forward. Audio annotation is a bonus in both circumstances.

jamiegreen 11y ago
Totally agree!

joeyspn 11y ago

I'm curious about the way they power the streams... I see they're using django as web framework, but for live streaming... which media server? looks like Nginx's rtmp module in dedicated servers? why a flash videoplayer and not html5?

protopete 11y ago
HTML5 video doesn't work with live video unfortunately, while flash RTMP streaming does. Alternatives include MPEG DASH and Apple HTTP Live Streaming, but not all browsers support them.
- joeyspn 11y ago
  I recall that being a limiting factor 3-4 years ago when I was working with RTMP & P2P/RTMFP, but in mid 2015? I thought HTML5 was ready for live video... Reading now about Media Source Extensions (I just discovered the API) I guess we're finally around the corner... =) https://w3c.github.io/media-source/ https://w3c.github.io/media-source/

widforss 11y ago

Hey, looks cool. But Flash? Seriously guys ...

jamiegreen 11y ago
Copied from another reply: Yeah it would be good to get rid of it at some point - need to check with my cofounder why we use it but I agree flash isn't great.

reledi 11y ago

IIRC this started out on reddit with a Google spreadsheet to schedule streams. They've come a long way, I'm excited for the journey!

jamiegreen 11y ago
ah the good old days of the Google Spreadsheet (well 3 months but it seems like an age :)

machbio 11y ago

I understand, the website is limited to coding - but what are the features that make it different from twitch.tv.. until now, I would always look at the streams on http://www.reddit.com/r/WatchPeopleCode/ http://www.reddit.com/r/WatchPeopleCode/ to watch people code.. I dont see, this being any different from twitch

jamiegreen 11y ago
I don't think we are trying to compete with Twitch on features, what differentiates us is our focus on live education rather than being for entertainment (though some streams can be pretty amusing!). Further, members of our community are passionate about coding or learning to code, so it is a different audience than Twitch's audience.
- mylons 11y ago
  but i can go to twitch and find live coders. why am i going to another platform when i can just use twitch for everything?

lifeisstillgood 11y ago

Ok, I'm going to bite. And as I am clearly a dinosaur, it's a big bite, but ... Why?! Could someone explain the benefits to watching someone code? It would be like watching someone write a novel. Mostly thinking? Could you recommend the best one or two - I should at least watch an exemplar before rejecting this out of hand (never had the like in my day, watch someone punch cards out? like watching this new fangled wireless radio). I guess It's like people listening to game music, will be mainstream in six months

neovive 11y ago

This looks great! I used to watch some live streams on http://www.watchpeoplecode.com http://www.watchpeoplecode.com, but stopped due to time constraints. There is definitely a lot of value in watching the workflow nuances of experienced devs, but I found that the value was too few and far between. I still watch from time to time, but found pre-recorded/edited video tutorials to be more efficient, although many of the nuances and passive learning benefits are lost. Perhaps, edited livestreams would work well.

ninjakeyboard 11y ago
I keep intending to buy this - it's Kent Beck writing code using TDD. https://pragprog.com/screencasts/v-kbtdd/test-driven-development https://pragprog.com/screencasts/v-kbtdd/test-driven-develop...

mumphster 11y ago

I've done a few streams on this site now (my channel is at http://livecoding.tv/ell http://livecoding.tv/ell) and my biggest issue so far is the bitrate enforcement. My bitrate fluctuates randomly sometimes and the website straight up boots me off my stream and shuts it down until I can reconnect. Really annoying. I've stopped using it as much mainly because of that.

jamiegreen 11y ago
Hey, sorry you had a bit of trouble streaming. If you are getting errors, you can add 'livecodingtv' on skype and someone should be able to help you with your setup!

mumphster 11y ago

hayksaakian 11y ago

Hey Founders! Is there any way to embed your player on another website? I see you use jwplayer, and I'm not sure how to embed that unless i mangle together some javascript myself. Something like an iframe that i cant feed livecoding.tv/:streamer/:embed would be nice (Background, i work on a stream browsing website: overrustle.com and some of my users requested to have streams from your site embedded there) PS: chat embed would be great too!

jamiegreen 11y ago
Hey! Not currently able to embed livestreams or chats, but this is something we definitely have in mind to develop, its just a question of priorities. You can request this feature here: http://roadmap.livecoding.tv/ http://roadmap.livecoding.tv/ Good luck with your site - looks cool :)
- hayksaakian 11y ago
  Thanks! I found the most relevant idea here, and I upvoted it "API – Technical Specification May 2015" http://roadmap.livecoding.tv/?p=45 http://roadmap.livecoding.tv/?p=45

cmdrfred 11y ago

Go to the site first thing I see is black-dragon-walking though-flames.gif (with "JEGAS MAN-CAVE stand by" scrawed in the top right) and some barely audible speech over terrible (pan flutes, really?) music.

jamiegreen 11y ago
Oh dear :/ I guess you saw jegas when he went for a smoke break... sorry your first experience wasn't the best!

anonbanker 11y ago

The first company to do this without making me install Adobe Flash (i.e. use webrtc and other existing technologies to do this) will be the first site I ever use. Right now, when I see "You must install Adobe Flash to use this site", I close the tab and never return.

nindalf 11y ago
FWIW, you can use Twitch without installing Flash in certain cases. If you happen to be using OS X and Safari, you can add "/hls" to any URL to have it play without Flash. If you're not averse to installing software, you could look into Livestreamer [1] that plays the stream in VLC. The advantage in both cases being improved fidelity and reduced battery consumption. [1] - https://livestreamer.readthedocs.org/en/latest/install.html https://livestreamer.readthedocs.org/en/latest/install.html
- mumphster 11y ago
  Just submitted a PR for livecoding.tv support as well: https://github.com/chrippa/livestreamer/pull/978 https://github.com/chrippa/livestreamer/pull/978 I coded it live as well (heh), you can check out the vod on my channel https://livecoding.tv/ell https://livecoding.tv/ell

flippant 11y ago

Why not just use Youtube? If you think setting up OBS is too much of a hassle, you can use Hangouts on Air with the screen-sharing feature. I've been streaming myself coding for the past two months. There have been no hiccups.

jamiegreen 11y ago
Each to their own ;) We are trying to build a community focussed on live coding education, which is more focussed than you will find on Youtube for example.
jamiegreen 11y ago
Each to their own ;) We are trying to build a community focussed on live coding education, which is more focussed than you will find on Youtube for example.

kup0 11y ago

I really love this idea, as someone still in the early stages of learning programming.

jamiegreen 11y ago
Makes me very happy to hear that :)

rhgraysonii 11y ago

Any plans for Linux support?

jamiegreen 11y ago
you can already stream from Linux, just use this software: https://obsproject.com/download https://obsproject.com/download

dylanjermiah 11y ago

What are the benefits of live a opposed to pre recorded? Ability to ask questions and get immediate responses?

jamiegreen 11y ago
Pretty much! The interaction is a key part of it.

RobotCaleb 11y ago

I had a very poor experience with one of the founders from livecoding while he was courting me to stream there. I asked for basic information such as whether a potential viewer requires a login to view a stream (Yes) and whether a potential viewer requires a login to participate in chat on a stream (Yes) and he was very abrasive and offputting. When I said I wasn't comfortable participating due to his attitude he claimed I wouldn't be a good fit for streaming and derided me for not just creating an account and figuring out the answers through trial and error. When asked I suggest people stream on youtube.

supercoder 11y ago
Yeah , wasn't this site on HN a couple weeks ago with Wolfram coding ? I remember it as the 'site that tried to make me sign up to watch a stream.'. So this story doesn't sound surprising..

Kiro 11y ago

How about a plugin to your IDE where you can share certain folders live to your audience so they can jump around the source code while you stream. Or a way for the streamer to paste syntax highlighted snippets live to their audience.

manyanimals 11y ago

I just find an easy method to free download twitch videos at http://www.allavsoft.com/how-to/twitch-video-download.html http://www.allavsoft.com/how-to/twitch-video-download.html Hope it is what you are looking for.

xytop 11y ago

I'm wondering if there are people who are streaming their closed source code..that might be against their company's privacy agreement. So in theory majority of streams should be about opensource projects.

bx_ 11y ago

Looks cool, but I was a bit miffed by the use of the WeChat logo as a chat icon on your /livestreams/ page (next to "join Q&A live chat") (see: http://www.wechat.com/en/ http://www.wechat.com/en/) when in fact you are using Candy Chat (http://candy-chat.github.io/candy/ http://candy-chat.github.io/candy/) Looks like this was done somewhat intentionally, since in your HTML you have <i class="fa fa-weixin"></i> (Weixin is the Chinese name for WeChat)

drakonka 11y ago

I've never streamed coding before (or anything) and ended up going with livecoding.tv vs Twitch to start with because of the smaller userbase (I guess it felt a little less intimidating...like there was a big chance that nobody would even see my stupid boring stream ;)) It's been pretty good so far, though I've only streamed a couple of times. People actually DID end up watching the stream and participating/asking questions about the project. So far the one annoying thing with the site has been that there's a video autoplaying each time I go to the home page. I want to go straight to my dashboard or at least stream view when already logged in, and ideally not have an autoplaying video/banner taking up the entire space of the home page above the fold.

codygman 11y ago

Aww, no Haskell category. Please add one? :)

jamiegreen 11y ago
We still get people coding haskell! I think for us it is difficult but we have to draw the line somewhere, as everyone wants their favourite language to be a top category.... not sure how best to solve this at the moment!

manyanimals 11y ago

I just find an easy method to free download twitch videos at Allavsoft. Hope it is what you are looking for.

dj_doh 11y ago

Collaborative a.k.a Pair Programming is really neat. I've done that in patches and found it really interesting and insightful. But that was some 6yrs ago.

Udo 11y ago

@jamiegreen, if you're reading this: - your notification email should not come from "support" (at least give the sender a good human-readable name) - it's good that you're showing a featured stream on the front page but there seems to be no way to get to their profile page from there Overall I found the site has come along nicely since I last visited, good job!

willyyr 11y ago

After registering yesterday my inbox got flooded with email notifications. I'm unable to switch them off from my mobile since the page is somehow broken. Please add a "disable all" link to the emails without the need to log in.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]