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My Twitch Live Coding Setup

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Re: My Twitch Live Coding Setup

#41

Post by Pristina »

minimaxir wrote: post #30
dcw303 wrote: post #22

I commend the author on the level of detail documented in the article. It's clear that they have spent much time and effort on making an appealing stream. And yet I still don't get live coding. I have about as much interest in streaming my programming as I have in having a coworker watching me work over my shoulder: zero. I'd love to know what people get out of this. For me the sacrifice to flow is far too great for…

A good reason for live coding is transparency even beyond a GitHub repo: I tried live-streaming data science because everyone thinks it's magic, and I try to show that it isn't. (and also show that data science coding is easier than one may think)

Once you know how to do something you think it's easy.

Re: My Twitch Live Coding Setup

#42

Post by minimaxir »

philliphaydon wrote: post #34
xpaulbettsx wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's zero reason to run 60FPS for a text editor, turn it down to 15FPS and take that extra bandwidth and put it into quality - if you're worried about the YouTube quality after-the-fact, you can run two encoding jobs though it's a bit rough on your CPU

The extra bandwidth would still be pretty small since the screen is mostly static. Unlike streaming a video game which is far more intensive as all 60 frames could be different within that second.

Not 100% sure if that’s the case here because of the Constant Bit Rate setting, but there are definitely fewer artifacts.

Re: My Twitch Live Coding Setup

#43

Post by nstart »

Lots of people discussing the pros and cons of livecoding. I'd like to share some alternate thoughts if possible. I believe that there is a niche interested in watching and/or participating in livecoding and for them they do it because they can be productive and have a good time.

So I took livecoding pretty seriously for a while. I recognise that Noopkat is a pro at this and is one of the most consistent live coders I've seen in a while. I need to pop into one of her streams one day to see how it's evolved.

From my past experiences of her stream, my own streaming and others' streaming it feels like there's one big unsolved challenge in livecoding.

Coding hasn't lent itself well to "liveness".

At least in its current form, sitting down in the middle of a session of someone coding and trying to figure out what they are doing is HARD. It's not like a game where there's a dashboard that carries the score and you can gather all the context you need in under a minute. When joining a stream of live coding, the questions to be answered:

- what project is the person working on? - what "feature" are they working on? - what are they trying to achieve at this very moment?

These questions are similar to a game

- what's the game the person is playing/or what character is the person playing/what teams am I looking at? - what's happened so far? - what's about to happen?

Summarise these as

- bigger picture context - current historical context - immediate and future intentions

And all of this should be gathered in about a minute with no interruption to the stream(er).

So far, no live coding experience has been able to satisfy this. I do believe that this is one of those cases where technology needs to solve the challenge. Either in the form of a new livecoding specific platform or better integrations in twitch/other live streaming platforms.

Re: My Twitch Live Coding Setup

#44

Post by philliphaydon »

minimaxir wrote: post #42
philliphaydon wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The extra bandwidth would still be pretty small since the screen is mostly static. Unlike streaming a video game which is far more intensive as all 60 frames could be different within that second.

Not 100% sure if that’s the case here because of the Constant Bit Rate setting, but there are definitely fewer artifacts.

Oh, I didn't know Twitch requires CBR. I guess it makes it easier to determine what the end user can stream without issue.

Re: My Twitch Live Coding Setup

#47

Post by tastroder »

mxscho wrote: post #11
minimaxir wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Double-checked: Twitch does say transcoding is "as available" for non-partners: https://help.twitch.tv/customer/portal/articles/2785927-join... Hmm, I could have sworn that I had the options available when watching smaller channels, but they may have been Partners. > There's zero reason to run 60FPS for a text editor It does make things surprisingly more fluid, especially for window navigation/scrolling (although you…

> Double-checked: Twitch does say transcoding is "as available" for non-partners It's mainly done for non-partnered channels with high view count (at latest after requesting it manually).

If they had it on smaller streams, there also seems to be some mechanism that kicks in when a stream restarts multiple times (my guess would be some heuristic thinks there might be problems and tries to be helpful).

Re: My Twitch Live Coding Setup

#48

Post by sjburt »

OptionX wrote: post #37

I've never understood the idea of using a 60% tenkeyless when your job requires you to type a lot. Even if you go full-size it dosen't take that much more space and you save you fingers the extra work for number and function keys.

I like having my mouse closer to my typing position. I've gotten fast enough at the top number keys that I don't mind too much.

Re: My Twitch Live Coding Setup

#49

Post by stale2002 »

nstart wrote: post #43

Lots of people discussing the pros and cons of livecoding. I'd like to share some alternate thoughts if possible. I believe that there is a niche interested in watching and/or participating in livecoding and for them they do it because they can be productive and have a good time. So I took livecoding pretty seriously for a while. I recognise that Noopkat is a pro at this and is one of the most consistent live coders…

> Coding hasn't lent itself well to "liveness".

> what project is the person working on? - what "feature" are they working on? - what are they trying to achieve at this very moment?

I used to do a bunch of livecoding myself, actually.

I agree with you that most programming does not lend itself too well to livecoding. But there is one niche that I believe lends itself extremely well to live coding.

This niche being whiteboard programming questions/interview practice.

In this niche, the whole point of the exercise is to work on self contained problems that can be solved within 30 minutes, and to talk out loud to your audience the entire time.

Was pretty fun when I was doing it. I was doing it mostly for practice, and now I work at twitch because of it.

And if I ever create my own startup, it will probably be something like "running a recruitment firm on twitch, by getting people to do interviews live".

Edit: Videos of my old stream are here: www.twitch.tv/stale2000/videos

Re: My Twitch Live Coding Setup

#50

Post by rising-sky »

Void_ wrote: post #27
dcw303 wrote: post #22

I commend the author on the level of detail documented in the article. It's clear that they have spent much time and effort on making an appealing stream. And yet I still don't get live coding. I have about as much interest in streaming my programming as I have in having a coworker watching me work over my shoulder: zero. I'd love to know what people get out of this. For me the sacrifice to flow is far too great for…

Question: Is it necessary to use "they" now that it's clear that she's a girl? I thought you use "they" when gender is not clear as to avoid assuming it's a guy.

Comment for people downvoting this: I don't think this comment should be downvoted, seems like a genuine question, intent on learning or understanding. If anything it's an opportunity for people or the questionee to explain or teach why they are using a specific pronoun. It's always better to approach with reasonable doubt and be less dismissive
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