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Writing System Software [video]

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Re: Writing System Software [video]

#2
Excited to check out this series and glad that Antirez took the time to make it. Would be cool to see more people make this kind of thing in the same mold of this and the DHH series from the last few weeks. Very interesting to hear something like a person's inner monologue while they're writing and reading code.

Re: Writing System Software [video]

#3
post #2

Excited to check out this series and glad that Antirez took the time to make it. Would be cool to see more people make this kind of thing in the same mold of this and the DHH series from the last few weeks. Very interesting to hear something like a person's inner monologue while they're writing and reading code.

Yes, I wonder if Antirez is inspired by DHH making these videos.

Re: Writing System Software [video]

#4
post #3
post #2

Excited to check out this series and glad that Antirez took the time to make it. Would be cool to see more people make this kind of thing in the same mold of this and the DHH series from the last few weeks. Very interesting to hear something like a person's inner monologue while they're writing and reading code.

Yes, I wonder if Antirez is inspired by DHH making these videos.

He says exactly that in the first 15 seconds of the video.

Re: Writing System Software [video]

#5
post #2

Excited to check out this series and glad that Antirez took the time to make it. Would be cool to see more people make this kind of thing in the same mold of this and the DHH series from the last few weeks. Very interesting to hear something like a person's inner monologue while they're writing and reading code.

I missed the DHH series. Do you have a link? I haven't been able to find them.

Re: Writing System Software [video]

#6
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I wonder if Antirez is inspired by DHH making these videos.

He says exactly that in the first 15 seconds of the video.

Indeed I totally followed DHH example, it looked like a great thing if done by multiple persons and personally I would like to see videos like that in different areas of design than programming.

Re: Writing System Software [video]

#7
post #2

Excited to check out this series and glad that Antirez took the time to make it. Would be cool to see more people make this kind of thing in the same mold of this and the DHH series from the last few weeks. Very interesting to hear something like a person's inner monologue while they're writing and reading code.

I've been trying similar-style videos on advanced data analysis/visualization since such screencasts are an unexplored area (my most recent video using Stack Overflow data: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OeyTfp7eq8) but there are a few snags which make it less accessible for anyone to do:

1. It requires subject preparation to avoid going off on a tangent. (in the case of the video above I cheated and use prewritten code, and the video was still 30+min long.)

2. It requires specialized software and hardware that's not free. (good recording software + good mic + good webcam are $50-100 each)

3. It requires good hardware preparation too (e.g. precise placement of the mic and good light for webcam, so I couldn't record at night)

4. It requires time for editing (unless in my case you slap on background audio and call it a day)

I bought a new mic since I was unhappy with the audio quality in that video, and am taking steps to refine video focus.

Re: Writing System Software [video]

#8
post #5
post #2

Excited to check out this series and glad that Antirez took the time to make it. Would be cool to see more people make this kind of thing in the same mold of this and the DHH series from the last few weeks. Very interesting to hear something like a person's inner monologue while they're writing and reading code.

I missed the DHH series. Do you have a link? I haven't been able to find them.

You can find it here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5i1gdwe1Ls&list=PL3m89j0mV0...

DHH's blogpost - https://m.signalvnoise.com/on-writing-software-well-aee37807...

Re: Writing System Software [video]

#9
For people wondering if Antriez is following DHH's example, he is. He announced it in this tweet: https://twitter.com/antirez/status/966052769391153155

DHH wrote about his series in this blog post: https://m.signalvnoise.com/on-writing-software-well-aee37807...

Link to his playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5i1gdwe1Ls&list=PL3m89j0mV0...

Re: Writing System Software [video]

#10
In case you are interested in providing feedbacks about the next episodes, my current list of potential ideas is:

1. Code snippets: show small self contained functions from random places inside Redis.

2. Redis Sentinel: the first design, the immediate redesign of v2, and how it is internally implemented.

3. The use of goto in Redis.

4. Redis protocol parsing and zero-copying of objects.

5. The odd Redis persistence model: fork() and fighting the copy-on-write.

6. Redis crash report. Generation and usefulness over the years.

7. Observability inside Redis: latency hooks, LATENCY DOCTOR and MEMORY DOCTOR.

8. Hybrid data structures: Streams macro nodes implementation.

9. RIO: Redis I/O abstraction and OOP in C.

10. Redis Cluster: how the Redis message bus is implemented.

11. Redis Cluster: hash slots tracking and redirections.

If you have any preference and/or other ideas, will be cool to hear.

About this experience itself, good things: shooting a video takes more or less just the time to record. Preparation is just a few minutes, and later post processing is an automatic process... So in 1 hour max everything is done. However I see that the reach of the videos is very low compared to a blog post, which requires more time to write sometimes, at least to have the same amount of info. So it's a tradeoff. Also consuming the video may be a problem for many, for instance for language barriers due to the speaker accent (in my case) and the listener ability to understand English without subtitles. Let's say I want to make 10 episodes and re-evaluate if it's a good idea to change style and do 5 minutes episodes instead.

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