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Lessons from my first year of live coding on Twitch

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Re: Lessons from my first year of live coding on Twitch

#21

Post by StavrosK »

avitzurel wrote: post #8
ioddly wrote: post #6

This is an interesting topic to me, as I'm giving a talk with some coding in two weeks and a major concern of mine has been making sure that what I'm doing is interesting and more importantly followable. Normal coding for me just is a flurry of vim activity. Questions for anyone who does this or views these sorts of streams: Do you find that people can follow what's happening in vim well enough? I've considered just…

Talk! Just talk your mouth off, seriously. It's the best tip I can give you to make it interactive. You gonna open a file and do something, say it, don't just do it. When you are thinking of a problem, ask for suggestions from the crowd/viewers... Also, ProTip. Vim is a problem if you navigate really quickly along splits (like you should), people lose focus and will just stop following. I switched to Atom for my last…

Huh, that's very good advice. I would never have thought about slowing myself down, but now that you mentioned it, it makes perfect sense.

Re: Lessons from my first year of live coding on Twitch

#22

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

elif wrote: post #11
nightcracker wrote: post #3

If you are programming, especially in a live studio environment, you should really invest into multiple monitors.

if you're trying to present to viewers, two monitors will make keeping them focused into a ridiculous chore. That is like telling a speaker to prepare two slide decks and switch between them during the talk.

I don't know much about streaming, but having watched lots of twitch channels, I think some streamers use one screen for stream display, and the other for everything they want to see but don't want the viewers to see e.g. chat, sensitive stuff, etc.

Re: Lessons from my first year of live coding on Twitch

#23

Post by ue_ »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #22
elif wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you're trying to present to viewers, two monitors will make keeping them focused into a ridiculous chore. That is like telling a speaker to prepare two slide decks and switch between them during the talk.

I don't know much about streaming, but having watched lots of twitch channels, I think some streamers use one screen for stream display, and the other for everything they want to see but don't want the viewers to see e.g. chat, sensitive stuff, etc.

That's exactly what I do when streaming Overwatch, especially when my friend talks to me via IRC and I reply with voice. That said my monitor is big enough to have both the game and IRC visible, and I could set OBS just to record the game.

Re: Lessons from my first year of live coding on Twitch

#24

Post by minimaxir »

elif wrote: post #11
nightcracker wrote: post #3

If you are programming, especially in a live studio environment, you should really invest into multiple monitors.

if you're trying to present to viewers, two monitors will make keeping them focused into a ridiculous chore. That is like telling a speaker to prepare two slide decks and switch between them during the talk.

Using a second monitor for live streaming is more useful for things useful to the streamer but which do not need to be shown on screen to readers (e.g. frantic Stack Overflow research when the code breaks, or analytics as the article mentions).

Re: Lessons from my first year of live coding on Twitch

#26

Post by striking »

Kiro wrote: post #13
avitzurel wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Stop 2. Just use a part of your screen that is off the recording. Never open `.` files on the stream. Never login on the screen, always off of the screen. If you are showing AWS cli console stuff, make sure you hide the public IPs and public DNS of things.

2 is related to 1 - there are credentials hard coded all over the place.

Clean up your code before you start.

Maybe this exercise will make you a better programmer.

Re: Lessons from my first year of live coding on Twitch

#27

Post by to3m »

nightcracker wrote: post #3

If you are programming, especially in a live studio environment, you should really invest into multiple monitors.

I've never watched this particular stream, but I've watched a few others. I expect many (most?) people are like me: they watch the stream on their TV while doing something else, or they stick it in a corner of their desktop, or on a spare monitor, ditto. Either way, if you go much past 1080p - at least for the region that's being streamed - it stands a fair chance of being hard to read.

(If you use a single monitor for coding in the privacy of your own home... well... what can I say? It takes all sorts.)

Re: Lessons from my first year of live coding on Twitch

#28

Post by will_pseudonym »

StavrosK wrote: post #21
avitzurel wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Talk! Just talk your mouth off, seriously. It's the best tip I can give you to make it interactive. You gonna open a file and do something, say it, don't just do it. When you are thinking of a problem, ask for suggestions from the crowd/viewers... Also, ProTip. Vim is a problem if you navigate really quickly along splits (like you should), people lose focus and will just stop following. I switched to Atom for my last…

Huh, that's very good advice. I would never have thought about slowing myself down, but now that you mentioned it, it makes perfect sense.

Just act like you're sitting next to a new coworker, teaching them what you're doing.

Re: Lessons from my first year of live coding on Twitch

#29

Post by Steeeve »

So my kids watch people streaming non-stop. At first I had no opinion. Then it seemed like they did it way too much and I fought it. Then I started paying attention and found it interesting as well. For them it's gaming, game discovery, and seeing personalities they enjoy regularly.

Something like this... I would really enjoy. Bookmarking this page so I can have a look at all your streams. I would like to do this myself. It would be interesting to be able to share exactly what it is that I try to get done on a daily basis. It would be useful to show my colleagues and management interests. I don't know how much they would pay attention, but even being able to point back to a video at a specific time to share something would be useful.

Unfortunately, I don't have a solo office, so figuring out a regular location to stream from will be a challenge, but that's neither here nor there. I can do it from home a few times without bothering anyone to figure out all the logistics before I actually try to do anything real.

Re: Lessons from my first year of live coding on Twitch

#30

Post by avitzurel »

will_pseudonym wrote: post #28
StavrosK wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh, that's very good advice. I would never have thought about slowing myself down, but now that you mentioned it, it makes perfect sense.

Just act like you're sitting next to a new coworker, teaching them what you're doing.

Act like you're voice controlling your fingers
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