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The Strange Appeal of Watching Coders Code

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Re: The Strange Appeal of Watching Coders Code

#21

Post by heydonovan »

I love watching other people code! As a viewer, you get to see the mistakes people make, their frustrations, and spur-of-the-moment thoughts. They are way more entertaining than video tutorials. The same people that don't like to watch Twitch streams, probably don't like watching others code.

Re: The Strange Appeal of Watching Coders Code

#22

Post by Jun8 »

I think this is missing the point: Watching people do a niche activity will only find a niche audience. However, the appeal may be exponentially increased by bringing in the human factor and antagonism. Good lessons could be learned from poker coverage on ESPN, once thought to be a ridiculous idea (who really knows that much poker, who really cares about people sitting around, etc.), now it's a huge hit (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poker_on_television)

Re: The Strange Appeal of Watching Coders Code

#23

Post by zajd »

pavlov wrote: post #14

To 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.

I'm guessing that has more to do with the novelty factor. Small children fall prey to those types of psychological tricks quite easily... I'd really think twice before letting a toddler on the internet.

Re: The Strange Appeal of Watching Coders Code

#24

Post by pavlov »

zajd wrote: post #23
pavlov wrote: post #14

To 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.

I'm guessing that has more to do with the novelty factor. Small children fall prey to those types of psychological tricks quite easily... I'd really think twice before letting a toddler on the internet.

I agree, but the thing is, I'm not sure adults are all that different.

Re: The Strange Appeal of Watching Coders Code

#25

Post by MiguelHudnandez »

A year or two ago, I watched notch stream coding for a weekend game competition, and it was fascinating. It was on the front page of HN for a while. I ended up watching it for a couple of hours while I did some low-cognition tasks. I think the appealing aspects for me were:

  * Seeing someone else's desktop and windowing habits
  * Watching for new keyboard shortcuts
  * Seeing workflows similar to mine in different IDEs and languages
  * Seeing workflows in domains I'm unfamiliar with, like collision detection
  * Finding someone's taste in music
Much of what I learned about programming was absorbing habits and handed-down knowledge from coworkers. Live streaming lets you get that without the necessity of making friends or getting hired somewhere. Sitting at someone's desk and working with them is an experience I have to describe as intimate.

Re: The Strange Appeal of Watching Coders Code

#26

Post by eterm »

pavlov wrote: post #14

To 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.

That sounds like a 3yr old version of csgo crate opening, which is the expensive digital equivalent, yet often takes over the csgo stream section of twitch.

Re: The Strange Appeal of Watching Coders Code

#27

Post by awongh »

pavlov wrote: post #14

To 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.

Apparently that person made 5 million dollars last year: http://fusion.net/story/38924/the-highest-youtube-earner-of-...

Re: The Strange Appeal of Watching Coders Code

#30

Post by ssalazar »

jules wrote: post #9
meatysnapper wrote: post #7

I 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".

Presumably twitch works just fine for it. The software doesn't really care whether it's streaming IDE pixels or game pixels.

Theres more to it then that, like community, how to find/organize streams, and promotion. If it were just about pushing video there wouldn't be twitch.tv, it would be ustream or twitch's predecessor justin.tv.
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