There's an author I know who does "live writes", which are essentially the same as this but for drafts of prose (she does them via shared Google Docs). There's definitely an attraction to watching the story take shape word by word that goes above and beyond just reading the finished product. I can't quite articulate it fully, but as an example, watching her write in real time lets you see which parts are easy and which parts give her trouble, based on how fast she writes and how much she deletes and rewrites things. I could easily imagine the same holds for code. I'm sure I could learn more about both coding and about the coder from watching them write a piece of code than by just reading the finished code.
The Strange Appeal of Watching Coders Code
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Re: The Strange Appeal of Watching Coders Code
#12I'm not trying to be snarky, because apparently people are watching, but I'm curious who the audience is? As a coder I have almost zero interest in watching other people code. I'll read through the end result, but watching somebody type it in? What's the point?
To see and learn how people work, possibly learning how to do stuff better yourself.
Re: The Strange Appeal of Watching Coders Code
#13I'm not trying to be snarky, because apparently people are watching, but I'm curious who the audience is? As a coder I have almost zero interest in watching other people code. I'll read through the end result, but watching somebody type it in? What's the point?
This is why I love bisqwit's videos on YouTube. He takes a middle ground between "typing it in" and pondered narration. The typing effect is sped up and faked and done at just the right speed to 'follow along' with his thought process. Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQYsFshbkYw
Re: The Strange Appeal of Watching Coders Code
#14To many people, there is a strange appeal in watching almost any monotonous activity being performed by others. I don't know why.
My 3-year-old daughter likes to watch endless YouTube videos of surprise eggs being opened. Live coding is not too different in spirit.
Re: The Strange Appeal of Watching Coders Code
#15honestly, it has no appeal to me and it blows my mind why anyone would find it fascinating... but what do i know, when twitter came out i thought no one would use it either.
Re: The Strange Appeal of Watching Coders Code
#16I can just see it... Twitch, but for coding. Bring on a tech celebrity for some color, and have a regular commentator and just mock the programmer for their "poor java style".
Re: The Strange Appeal of Watching Coders Code
#17Wow, I could not agree any less in terms of appeal.
Re: The Strange Appeal of Watching Coders Code
#18It should be noted that Livecoding.tv is (YC S15). Also, the article states there are "legions of coders" flocking to the site but I can't find much evidence of that, if the Twitter account ( http://twitter.com/livecodingtv ) which tweets all live streams, is anything to go by. At the least, if I wanted to livestream code, I would do it on YouTube where I can stream 1080p60fps. (I'm also sore about Livecoding.tv's "y…
It really hasnt taken off and I dont really see it taking off either, its too niche. Right now twitch has more programming streams on it between http://www.twitch.tv/directory/game/Game%20Development and http://www.twitch.tv/directory/game/Programming .
I think my biggest issue though is that for a site that is focused on programming having things like C/C++ (I think it was C/C++/C# at one time too) be grouped together as categories and other weird minor things just makes the whole site feel like its not really ran by people who are like.. actually developers.
Re: The Strange Appeal of Watching Coders Code
#19I'm not trying to be snarky, because apparently people are watching, but I'm curious who the audience is? As a coder I have almost zero interest in watching other people code. I'll read through the end result, but watching somebody type it in? What's the point?
I've watched the occasional bits and pieces of Ludum Dare streams (48h game design/programming competition). Games are something I don't have much experience with, so it was interesting to see how they approach it, how the tools and frameworks look like. I dislike video tutorials, but seeing someone work with it made more sense to me. But I didn't watch long segments, but kept the stream open and checked every now and then what they were doing and if it was interesting watched for a while.
Re: The Strange Appeal of Watching Coders Code
#20I'm not trying to be snarky, because apparently people are watching, but I'm curious who the audience is? As a coder I have almost zero interest in watching other people code. I'll read through the end result, but watching somebody type it in? What's the point?
I never understood the appeal until I started watching Handmade Hero( https://handmadehero.org/ ). I had always wanted to learn about C, but if you don't have an idea of your own, it can be difficult to put what you learn into practice. Casey Muratori did a great job of explaining why he was doing things certain ways and went even deeper to explain the underlying concepts. I don't see very many live broadcasts on liv…
Great tip, thanks! I'm really enjoying watching these. Any other resources like this that you would recommend?