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My Twitch Live Coding Setup

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Re: My Twitch Live Coding Setup

#91
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…

If you're live-coding you should be constantly talking aloud what you're doing and what you're thinking about. The most popular Twitch streamers are usually good at filling silence.

I often verbalize through problems (talk to myself) - so this may actually be a good excuse for that.

Re: My Twitch Live Coding Setup

#92
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…

    > So far, no live coding experience has been able to satisfy this. 
You are right. But some are interesting for the purpose of inspiration, or even entertainment. I've watched @Swizec recently and also the guy who created minecraft, mojang, had some epic livecoding years back.

They're similar to cooking shows on TV or youtube. You might not be able to do the stuff yourself, but just watching someone knock down their immediate obstacles can be inspirational and promotes confidence to emulate their approach for one's own projects. It is also heartening to see that elite pro's struggle with the same little snags that everyone else does.

The context and intent is, of course, important if you want to reproduce the exact same project, but that would be less interesting, I think.

Re: My Twitch Live Coding Setup

#94
I find it sort of funny that this is basically a direct modernization of what used to be a common thing centuries ago: mathematicians would be paid to compete against other mathematicians and see who could solve certain problems faster. And while there isn't exactly a competitive aspect here, it still seems to be almost a spectator sport, but now with a new layer of spectator interaction.

Re: My Twitch Live Coding Setup

#95
I'm a product designer, consultant, mostly medical devices and otheris soon critical products. I've been toying with the idea of live streaming myself designing example products (no client work of course). I use mainly solidworks, fusion360, creative cloud etc. to do it. Do the hn folks think there would be interest in such a stream?

Re: My Twitch Live Coding Setup

#97
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.

There is a certain maximum number of keys that your fingers can actually reach. At some point, chords end up being easier to type.

I think 3 row keyboards are too few keys, but the number row is actually pretty hard to type, so eliminating it isn't necessarily insane. I have a number row on my keyboard but I also have "raise" and "lower" layers, one of which gives you a number pad on your right hand. I find the numpad easier to reach than 1 and 0 and try to use it all the time. I have symbols mapped to a layer, so the crucial ones are on home row, with the other ones on the letter keys below the number that normally types them, with some exceptions for keys I've moved elsewhere. I also have dedicated keys for := and != which is quite enjoyable. (You can see the complete map at https://github.com/jrockway/qmk_firmware/blob/master/keyboar...)

Basically, if you're programming you are probably typing a lot of symbols. On a traditional qwerty layout, all those symbols are shifted AND on hard-to-reach keys. Moving them anywhere else is an improvement. Having more keys is good for infrequent things like arrow keys, page up/page down, insert/delete... basically OS functions that you use during normal usage of your computer, but that you've programmed any application you actually care about to not use. (In Emacs/Vim you aren't using arrow keys to move around your text, for example. Or at least I don't, preferring C-n/C-p/C-v/M-v/C-f/C-b to the OS keys.)

Re: My Twitch Live Coding Setup

#98
post #72
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.

This setup is not for the real world, it is for fame and stream. I can't even imagine not using my 2nd monitor. I have 4 monitors by the way. With all the distraction and talking, with smiley and responses, I don't think anyone can really deliver anything properly on time. Some people play games, some use different tools for streaming. This is one of those.

Just want to chime in that my home setup is pretty similar to the one she lists -- and I'm very much not famous and have never even contemplated streaming.

I don't like a 2nd monitor -- having one makes me rotate unnecessarily and doesn't provide anything that multiple desktops and generally multiple windows don't provide.

I prefer a tenkeyless keyboard for everything -- the less I have to move my arm to reach the mouse the better.

Re: My Twitch Live Coding Setup

#99

I think a lot of people, including myself, could get a lot out of streaming what we do even if another person never watches at all. Because we have to talk about our decisions, focus on a task, and just keep going as if we have an audience.

Rubber duck: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging

Re: My Twitch Live Coding Setup

#100
post #4

I did live coding on twitch back a year or so ago, for about 2-3 months. It was nice to get a bit of company working from home on my own sabatical (aka. financial dive) year. Overall though I don't think it's worth it. You get the usual lurkers that come say hi, and then a bunch of drop-ins that have language questions, stackoverflow type questions, or start rambling about technological choices which eventually distr…

How did your sabatical turn out? Did you get what you expected out of it? I am starting one right now and wonder if you had one or two words of advice? Your comment made me laugh btw, I am in such a similar position! Best to you.
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