Cloudflare TV • Hacker News Board

Re: Cloudflare TV

#181

Post by reallydontask » Mon, Jun 08, 2020, 8:20 AM UTC

trog wrote: post #56

I'm a generally technical person and I'm simply flat out uninterested in video content - the stuff that will be on this sounds broadly interesting to me but I'd rather read it in article format. I understand video "performs" well in a lot of contexts (and thus is of particular interest to marketing people) but I am always surprised when content targeted broadly towards the technical community is done in a video-first…

I'm not so sure that we're in the minority, those of us that prefer text over video. I just think that it's a lot easier to sell video than text and that subscriptions to learning services are the tech equivalent of Gym subscriptions.

I have a Linux Academy subscription and I find that the labs are really useful (they do range in quality to be fair) and that the courses are next to useless but, and this is a big but, the text content that the courses provide gives you, with the labs, probably as much as the videos.

Idk, maybe I'm doing the videos wrong or have the wrong expectations.

Re: Cloudflare TV

#182

Post by Dahoon » Mon, Jun 08, 2020, 8:21 AM UTC

vackosar wrote: post #168

Simon_says wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had to jailbreak my iPhone in order to not see Youtube ads. That qualifies as some (small) effort.

Can't you use Firefox with uBlock addon on an iPhone?

No, the iPhone is locked down too much for this to work. Browsers in iOS are basically just skins on Safari/WebKit.

Re: Cloudflare TV

#183

Post by oblio » Mon, Jun 08, 2020, 8:23 AM UTC

nindalf wrote: post #164

trog wrote: post #56

I'm a generally technical person and I'm simply flat out uninterested in video content - the stuff that will be on this sounds broadly interesting to me but I'd rather read it in article format. I understand video "performs" well in a lot of contexts (and thus is of particular interest to marketing people) but I am always surprised when content targeted broadly towards the technical community is done in a video-first…

I'm not interested in video content either. But in recent years I've found that some people respond much better to it. Anecdotally, it seems like every student on /r/programmerhumor got through their CS degree with the help of algorithms videos on youtube. Despite having trouble understanding the accent, they found it much easier to learn from the video than the book. I prefer the book, even though I would have had n…

It's somewhat simple: we have a lot of processing power dedicated to communicating with people. We also have a ROM + BIOS in our brains for caring about other people and liking to interact with them. Reading and writing are quite unnatural, in comparison.

Re: Cloudflare TV

#184

Post by squidi » Mon, Jun 08, 2020, 8:24 AM UTC

p4bl0 wrote: post #154

The constant comparison with MTV is weird, but fun. Here is a proposed parallel grid: Next : tech job interviews. Bug raiders : bug fixing live. Pimp my web : Xzibit manages a team of front-end engineers. Jackass : Programming drones that do stupid things.

Jackass should be people pushing code live without testing and monitoring how it breaks the site

VH1 Behind the hits style show: Walk though git history of a famous repo

Re: Cloudflare TV

#185

Post by oblio » Mon, Jun 08, 2020, 8:25 AM UTC

reallydontask wrote: post #181

trog wrote: post #56

I'm a generally technical person and I'm simply flat out uninterested in video content - the stuff that will be on this sounds broadly interesting to me but I'd rather read it in article format. I understand video "performs" well in a lot of contexts (and thus is of particular interest to marketing people) but I am always surprised when content targeted broadly towards the technical community is done in a video-first…

I'm not so sure that we're in the minority, those of us that prefer text over video. I just think that it's a lot easier to sell video than text and that subscriptions to learning services are the tech equivalent of Gym subscriptions. I have a Linux Academy subscription and I find that the labs are really useful (they do range in quality to be fair) and that the courses are next to useless but, and this is a big but,…

> I'm not so sure that we're in the minority, those of us that prefer text over video.

We are. Just the fact that every modern OS uses GUIs should tell you something ;-)

Re: Cloudflare TV

#186

Post by p4bl0 » Mon, Jun 08, 2020, 8:27 AM UTC

squidi wrote: post #184

p4bl0 wrote: post #154

The constant comparison with MTV is weird, but fun. Here is a proposed parallel grid: Next : tech job interviews. Bug raiders : bug fixing live. Pimp my web : Xzibit manages a team of front-end engineers. Jackass : Programming drones that do stupid things.

Jackass should be people pushing code live without testing and monitoring how it breaks the site VH1 Behind the hits style show: Walk though git history of a famous repo

> Jackass should be people pushing code live without testing.

Ah yes, that's better!

Re: Cloudflare TV

#187

Post by tortila » Mon, Jun 08, 2020, 8:32 AM UTC

> Michelle Zatlyn, Cloudflare co-founder and COO, is doing a weekly series called “Yes We Can” highlighting women entrepreneurs and debunking the myth that there are no women in tech

Did the author just come up with this myth? Personally I’ve never heard such a statement. Not trying to undermine the issue of under-representation of women, but this could’ve been worded in a better way

Re: Cloudflare TV

#188

Post by michaelt » Mon, Jun 08, 2020, 8:39 AM UTC

nindalf wrote: post #164

trog wrote: post #56

I'm a generally technical person and I'm simply flat out uninterested in video content - the stuff that will be on this sounds broadly interesting to me but I'd rather read it in article format. I understand video "performs" well in a lot of contexts (and thus is of particular interest to marketing people) but I am always surprised when content targeted broadly towards the technical community is done in a video-first…

I'm not interested in video content either. But in recent years I've found that some people respond much better to it. Anecdotally, it seems like every student on /r/programmerhumor got through their CS degree with the help of algorithms videos on youtube. Despite having trouble understanding the accent, they found it much easier to learn from the video than the book. I prefer the book, even though I would have had n…

> Despite having trouble understanding the accent, they found it much easier to learn from the video than the book.

In my experience, a video and a textbook will often present content radically differently - even when they're both by the same person and for the same audience.

You give a CS professor a blackboard to explain a binary tree and they'll explain it to the level of "and three is less than five, so we go left at this node"

Ask the same professor to write a textbook, and they'll instead start writing ∑ and ∃ and defining what an integer is.

Re: Cloudflare TV

#189

Post by tiborsaas » Mon, Jun 08, 2020, 8:41 AM UTC

onion2k wrote: post #160

Anon4Now wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm mixed. I enjoy programming video tutorials, but they are often too slow and padded with non-essential and repetitive information. Unless there's a transcript, searching for a part that you need a recap of isn't much different than information retrieval from tape drives in the 60's. The best video tutorials have include a transcript and a github repo.

For graphics programming tutorials a video is a huge help. The huge problem with text articles about complex dev topics is that errors compound - if you're following along and you make a mistake early on you won't necessarily know until much later, by which time it's a lot harder to figure out where you went wrong. Being able to see what was supposed to happen at each step makes it much easier to follow. Also, with a…

I also love the observe the whole process rather that the pieces a blog post author thinks is important.

The two formats definitely complement each other, they are good for different purposes.

Re: Cloudflare TV

#190

Post by Proziam » Mon, Jun 08, 2020, 8:48 AM UTC

colechristensen wrote: post #122

ShamelessC wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've noticed certain communities that live on the edge of tech-savvy do this a lot. In particular emulator and jailbreak communities for video game consoles refuse to keep up-to-date text guides on things. Everything is done on YouTube which is such a terrible format when you need to follow 30-step lists and pause to click on many links throughout the process to download software, firmware and exploits.

Honestly, a hard to follow YouTube video is better than digging through hundreds of pages of forum posts in attempts to find the right one. Of course clear, concise, and findable documentation is always better, but at least if someone is doing it on youtube there is demonstrable evidence that the process functioned once.

This right here is why Youtube is my first choice. I've had too many run-ins with bad documentation and some of them are just about nightmare-inducing. Youtube has an awesome advantage that I can see the whole process (which sometimes includes minor things like using specific flags or config changes), I can see that it worked, and I can create my own documentation based on the success/failure of following that guide.