How One Developer Got the Internet To Watch People Code

blottsie writes: While Twitch TV is generally used for livestreaming gameplay, Alexander Putilin has other plans for the platform. Putilin and his girlfriend are using Twitch to build a community of software developers and students who broadcast complex floating point operations and algorithm design to the rest of the world. The community is responding and growing alongside its newfound popularity. WatchPeopleCode is now facilitating live hackathons (there was one this weekend), enabling programmers to meet and collaborate with people that they'd otherwise never be able to.

Comments

and produced

[Tablizer]

the first A.I. yawn

Re:and produced

[Anonymous Coward]

Careful, this is slashdot, we don't want yet another debate on how AIs will inevitable enslave us all.

(seriously slashdot, stop believing movies)

Re:and produced

[Half-pint HAL]

If you don't believe it, then the AIs have already got to you.

Now excuse me -- I have to go and test the RF shielding properties of another brand of kitchen foil....

Well, the jig is up for them now.

[stimpleton]

"...who broadcast complex floating point operations and algorithm design to the rest of the world..." IE live coding like a tech presentation.

Not for much longer now the cat is out of the bag.

Twitch is not a replacement for Justin.tv. Justin.tv not financially viable. Game streaming is, hence twitch.tv

From Twitch Rules: "Non-gaming, non-music content: Video games, board games, card games, fantasy sports, LARP games, and acceptable music content (see above). And while it's nice to take a break and just chill out with your audience, please ensure that your channel's primary focus is on gaming or music creation."

Re:Well, the jig is up for them now.

[JanneM]

[...] please ensure that your channel's primary focus is on gaming or music creation."

Sing your code. Problem solved.

So, "assert(Ieiei == True)"

becomes

"Aaaand IIIIIIIIIIeeeeiiiiiiieeeeiiii wiiiiilllll aaaalways be Ttrrrruuuuuuueeeeeeeee"

Re:Well, the jig is up for them now.

[smallfries]

At least it works for gaming. Watching somebody code using a small font size, in a tiny window, down-sampled to 720p and then compressed to hell is about as much fun as... watching someone code. What ever happened to doing?

Re:Well, the jig is up for them now.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hipsters don't know how to doing. Plz need walkthrough.

Re:Well, the jig is up for them now.

[Anonymous Coward]

Try 1080p. So readable. Much entertaining.

Re:Well, the jig is up for them now.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just what we need. Another remake of the free software song .... please don't!

http://youtu.be/9sJUDx7iEJw?t=...

Re: Well, the jig is up for them now.

[BlueTrin]

You forgot to add "A song from JIT Berlake"

Re:Well, the jig is up for them now.

[earthminion]

1080p or not, is the least of its problems.

I've just sat through 40 minutes of the video you link to. I get it that they are trying it as a PR stunt, but the novelty will very quickly ware off. For example, I don't see who the target audience of these videos are and judging by the low viewing numbers, there isn't much of a target audience and once the novelty very quickly wares off, I can't imagine much of the press caring either. So it'll quickly end up being a lot of extra distracting work for little gain.

I think a better method for this kind of teaching coding kind of content is on standard web pages (which has been happening for years), with maybe videos which demo the effect (if its graphical). That way there's at least the potential to have cut and paste demos and maybe downloadable content, but just watching coding videos in real time will get boring very quickly. Web page content by its very nature is a condensed concise format.

If they want it as a video, then do it like power point style (which has also been done for years). That is also a condensed concise format.

I also don't get why have a webcam overlay with the person speaking to you? ... There is no need. It would work better with more screen given over to the coding and the result.

Also there's no way this will work for general purpose code, as frankly a lot of the time, a lot of coding is boring ... For example, Waiting for it compile, Waiting for it to run, Tracking down the bug, Getting from version control, Raging at why the fuck it doesn't work as intended, Finding where to put a change in someone else's code, Just trying to make sense of someone else's code etc... What's feels great, is the result. When it works, but that's really a small part, the pay off at the end, then its quickly back onto the next task and repeat.

Good luck as a PR stunt, but this method of real time delivery of information won't last.

Re:Well, the jig is up for them now.

[shadwdrak]

Interesting enough, I develop indie games for my studio 100% live on the internet. 8 hours a day in front of 100-200 people on average. I also make sure my encoding settings are able to work a screen full of text at 1080p.

Your question as to why watch instead of do? I ask, why not both? I have a lot of people who come hang out on my stream while they are developing their own projects. Hearing me constantly talking on my stream about my development or helping others fix their bugs keeps them motivated and on task. Also, my stream community is very active in chat with all levels of game/general/web developers. We are constantly helping people solve problems, or bounce ideas off of.

If you want to see how it's properly done sometime: http://www.twitch.tv/whilke

Re:Well, the jig is up for them now.

[shadwdrak]

Actually, Twitch a few months ago added a new channel called: Game Programming. It's also had a General Programming channel for longer than that. As long as you are streaming your programming to one of those channels you are completely within the rules of twitch. In fact, several streams have gotten partnered from streaming game development.

I stream all of my indie studio game development live to twitch in front of 100-200 people 8 hours a day, and there are many other game development streams.

If you want to see how streaming development is properly and entertainingly done: http://www.twitch.tv/whilke

Re:Well, the jig is up for them now.

[Anonymous Coward]

I love watching your stream. People get it or they don't. I find it interesting to hear the reasoning behind the program as it's being built not the actual keystrokes and watching the program take shape over the days.

Re:Well, the jig is up for them now.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ability to rewind might be good for learning software used in programming such as IDEs, debuggers, frameworks and other software. This should facilitate "doing it" and as a result be useful.

Re:Well, the jig is up for them now.

[eihab]

I don't think Casey (handmade hero) has anything to do with these guys. He's been streaming for 2 hours a day, 5 days a week since mid/late 2014.

His goal is to teach people how to build a game from scratch in C without an engine or much reliance on libraries. His stream is extremely informative and fun to watch, it feels like pair programming most of the time.

You can also pre-order the game (he's estimating 2 years to completion) which will give you access to the source code nightly to follow along.

An added bonus to watching the stream live (8pm PST) is that he does almost an hour of Q&A after each stream discussing ideas, explaining things anyone didn't get, next steps, etc.

I highly recommend starting his streams from the beginning if game programming interests you. There's a community already porting the code to Linux/OSX (which he intends to do later on as well).

Re:Well, the jig is up for them now.

[Anonymous Coward]

Also there's no way this will work for general purpose code, as frankly a lot of the time, a lot of coding is boring ... For example, Waiting for it compile, Waiting for it to run, Tracking down the bug, Getting from version control, Raging at why the fuck it doesn't work as intended, Finding where to put a change in someone else's code, Just trying to make sense of someone else's code etc... What's feels great, is the result.

Coding is not boring. Every time I sat at my editor and try to sold a problem I never was bored.

As for his case, in the video, not all part are super interesting but none of the problems you listed exist. Compile time is null, run is instantaneous, tracking bug is party of the challenge, there is no version control, i didn't see him rage so far, his code is well explained and there is a time for question.

Yes this hype wont last. The novelty will wear off and peoples will return to watch "let's play" video. Although in his case, he said this project will spawn several years.

Re:Well, the jig is up for them now.

[Anonymous Coward]

Compiler error wut do?

Re:Well, the jig is up for them now.

[Half-pint HAL]

At least it works for gaming. Watching somebody code using a small font size, in a tiny window, down-sampled to 720p and then compressed to hell is about as much fun as... watching someone code. What ever happened to doing?

I think you're looking at it the wrong way. In a commercial environment, you'll have multiple coders within earshot of each other, and they can bounce questions off each other. Don't think of this as entertainment streaming, but just as another form of telepresence.

Meet and collaborate!

[Anonymous Coward]

Produce shit code to impress strangers! Get a warm fuzzy social feeling from doing it!

Why not just have a fucking orgy. Literally. It's the only way hipsters have sex. In large fucking groups.

Somewhere to showcase my code now

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally somewhere to show off my awesome C code and python networking code and GTK business software and SDL games that noone wants to look at. man.

Re:Somewhere to showcase my code now

[Anonymous Coward]

#include

int findsub(char tronk[], char retronk[])
{
  int index = 0, pos = 0;
  while (tronk[index] != '\0')
  {
    if (tronk[index] == retronk[pos])
    {
      pos++;
      if (retronk[pos] == '\0')
      {
        return 1;
      }
    }
    else
    {
      pos = 0;
    }
  index++;
  }
  return 0;
}

int main()
{
  printf("\nEnter a string ponky head. ");
  char tronk[40];
  scanf("%s", tronk);
  char c;
  while ((c= getchar()) != '\n')
  {}
  printf("\nEnter a sub string to find ponky head.");
  char retronk[40];
  scanf("%s", retronk);
  while ((c=getchar()) != '\n')
  {}
  printf("\nTronk = %s and retronk = %s \n", tronk, retronk);
  int skonk;
  skonk = findsub(tronk, retronk);
  printf("\n skonk = %d \n", skonk);
  return 0;
}

Re:Somewhere to showcase my code now

[93 Escort Wagon]

Just incorporate an actual python into your python coding video - problem solved!

Re:Somewhere to showcase my code now

[Anonymous Coward]

Just incorporate an actual python into your python coding video - problem solved!

Hey, I've watched that movie! I think its name was "Snakes on a toolchain".

LOLWUT

[Anonymous Coward]

Watching someone else code ranks on my todo list just behind watching paint dry and watching grass grow.

I've watched a few live-coding sessions. The following generizations were true of all of them:

* young male
* likes hearing himself talk
* manually indents his code
* types slower than stephen hawking
* does not know any keyboard shortcuts for the IDE
* does not know the idioms of the language he's using
* can't spot obvious typos becuase he's too busy talking
* the coding task is obviously rehearsed, but it's either poorly rehearsed or the guy is just nervous

Just point me to the github. I'll learn more about your project in 5 minutes than anyone that watched a dozen 10-minute videos of you rambling on about the latest code fads that you just learned.

Re:LOLWUT

[Anonymous Coward]

* can't spot obvious typos becuase he's too busy talking

You so billant dude! I want to subscribe to your comedy channel.

Re:LOLWUT

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm glad you're amused, but eye meant code typos. Aye never claimed too no how two speel. :D

Example code typo: Dude types X when he meant Y, and it's clear from context that he meant Y. Then 5 minutes later (in a 10 minute video), he pauses the video to hunt down the mistake.

p.s. I stopped trying to proofread spelling or code syntax about 15 years ago. If the IDE doesn't squiggle, then I assume all the words in the comments are spelled correctly, and the syntax compiles. For some reason Firefox randomly chooses to stop spell checking, and I mistake the lack of squiggles for lack of spelling mistakes.

Re:LOLWUT

[Anonymous Coward]

This. Unless you're watching a hands-on demonstration which requires, well, hands to be on something and manipulating it (and, no, entering code isn't a manual skill - when my RSI was bad some days I coded by voice, and it was slower but perfectly possible), you're wasting your time.

What is more, first rule of code: good code takes ages to design and refine. If you're genuinely watching someone write good software, you'll be spending hardly any time watching them at an editor window. Those 24 hour hack-a-thons are fueled by the same testosterone that makes young men drive fast cars - they have an inflated sense of their own skill, and a false sense of urgency when it comes to needing to demonstrate it. Nothing very interesting comes from them.

While I'm still fairly young and stupid, give me someone wiser - and probably older - who teaches me to think slowly but correctly, please.

Re:LOLWUT

[Viol8]

"* manually indents his code"

To be fair, I find manually indenting code a lot less frustrating than auto indent because the number of times when I *don't* want auto indent to work but it does anyway and I have to manually undo it just makes it more hassle than its worth.

Agree with you on everything else though.

Re:LOLWUT

[Anonymous Coward]

Auto-whatever is so obnoxious. Auto-indentation is bad enough but what really gets me is automatic parenthesis/closing bracket.
Not only does it interfere with your habit to add those, and if you don't have that habit you are pretty screwed when coding in a simple text editor, but it also messes up if you want to write the else clause first. I like to write to error handling immediately so that I don't forget that later on.

Re:LOLWUT

[angel'o'sphere]

Puh, that is one of the things that don't happen in languages that use braces ...
Type the closing brace, and indentstion jumps back.
Or more often you type the opening and the closing one is placed automatically below it :)

Re:LOLWUT

[JMJimmy]

Auto isn't obnoxious when it's self triggered. I love using HTMLKit for coding because you can setup custom rules based on the language you're using and just hit a key (your choice of which key) to trigger a pre-defined auto-behaviour. Saves so much time not having to fuss with auto-behaviours you don't intend and not manually entering every slow detail every time. Even places the carat where you want it.

Re:LOLWUT

[shadwdrak]

You're 100% correct about hackathons etc. However, they are not completely useless. You should consider them a fast prototyping session. If any good ideas come from it, you can take it and run with it properly.

However, I actually do develop indie games live on the internet in front of 100-200 people 8 hours a day and they are very entertained. It takes more then being able to code to do this; you must also be very entertaining.

I don't know about how one guy got the internet to watch people code, considering several of us have been doing this via twitch for some time now. If you want to see how it's correctly done, and possible join a great interactive development community:

http://www.twitch.tv/whilke

Re:LOLWUT

[Jason Levine]

I was just thinking this also. I'm a programmer. I love my job and I love coding. However, if someone needed to watch me work for "entertainment", they would be really disappointed. Long stretches of me typing at a keyboard. Occasionally, I stop and think about a problem. The most exciting moment would be when I'm so happy about solving a tricky problem that I let out an audible "I know!" and then go back to typing.

Not exactly riveting stuff there.

Re:LOLWUT

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately you'd not be very fun to watch then. There are several people who are very entertaining, while also being good at what they do (development).

Who woulda thunk?

Re:LOLWUT

[packrat0x]

Auto isn't obnoxious when it's self triggered. I love using HTMLKit for coding because you can setup custom rules based on the language you're using and just hit a key (your choice of which key) to trigger a pre-defined auto-behaviour. Saves so much time not having to fuss with auto-behaviours you don't intend and not manually entering every slow detail every time. Even places the carat where you want it.

In other words, you use macros.

Re:LOLWUT

[JMJimmy]

In other words, you use macros.

Not quite, but similar enough.

how did this make it to the frontpage,...

[Selur]

this is news how, come on there has den folks coding in their youtube-channel for ages,...
don't really see whats special or new about this,..

Re:how did this make it to the frontpage,...

[oodaloop]

Now if they were 3D printing something, or maybe using bitcoin, THAT would be a story!

Re:how did this make it to the frontpage,...

[Half-pint HAL]

In that case you might be interested in my Twitch stream, where I manually code the drivers to produce unique 3D printed representations of Bitcoins.

If that hasn't filled your /. Buzzword Bingo card, I'll be starting a Kickstarter campaign shortly to pilot a scheme for delivering the coins to my customers by autonomous drone.

And Timothy will video an interview with me, most probably in a noisy environment that makes it difficult to follow.

HOUSE!

The fun of coding...

[Viol8]

.... is solving problems yourself and creating a working piece of code at the end along with a sense of achievement and self satisfaction.

The fun of coding is NOT the physical typing in of the code text along with edits, deletions what whatnots. So quite why anyone would want to watch someone *else* do it frankly is beyond me. If you want to learn to code in language XYZ go buy a book or look at some example code online then most importantly try it yourself.

Re:The fun of coding...

[Anonymous Coward]

Twitch has always been about backseat-*.
First backseat gaming, now backseat coding.

Who doesn't want to point out all the errors the one doing things are making?

Re:The fun of coding...

[Anonymous Coward]

This. It's similar to all these kids these days watching minecraft videos instead of plying minecraft etc. LAME

Re:The fun of coding...

[GroeFaZ]

Come on. You can use the same argument on broadcasting basically any activity, sports and music in particular. What's the fun in watching someone play tennis or the violin when you can do it yourself? Well, some can't do it themselves, and most cannot do it nearly as proficiently as the talents/professionals they are watching. Word mincing aside, there is an actual "Ludum Dare" channel on Twitch already. It lets people broadcast how they write a video game over a weekend, and I can assure you it has several thousand viewers when it's on, so there's your proof that there is an audience for people writing code.

Re:The fun of coding...

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting enough, not every live development stream is the same. While some are about *tutorial* based development, some live dev streams are just developers doing their work while also streaming it to the internet.

Plenty of people watch those streams while they are doing/trying it themselves. It gives them someone else in the *room* doing the same thing, which keeps them motiviated. It also provides live chat with the streamer and the rest of the audience to throw ideas and issues against.

Have you never sat on IRC talking with other developers trying to solve a problem you were developing against? This is just the next extension of that with one of those guys sharing his desktop and talking to you.

Re:The fun of coding...

[tlhIngan]

The fun of coding is NOT the physical typing in of the code text along with edits, deletions what whatnots. So quite why anyone would want to watch someone *else* do it frankly is beyond me. If you want to learn to code in language XYZ go buy a book or look at some example code online then most importantly try it yourself.

You can argue that about anything.

You can argue that the "fun" in playing videogames is well... playing videogames. Yet for over a decade now, watching others play videogames is popular (ask anyone in South Korea who watch people play StarCraft). And in the past 2-3 years, "Let's Play" style videos have been extremely popular on YouTube (which consists of nothing more than someone recording their play through of a game). And perhaps in the past year, broadcasting of games through Twitch.

It's apparently REALLY popular given Sony's dedicated a whole button on their controller to putting up gaming videos.

And no, we're not talking about quickie "This is where the item is" style videos that basically show you where some object is to save paragraphs of text. We're talking about videos showing a game from start to finish.

Re:The fun of coding...

[Anonymous Coward]

I actually do hold that opinion about sports.

However music is inherently a performance, the measure of a good musician is how willing people are to listen to their music.

The measure of a good coder is not how many people want to watch you code but rather the efficiency with which they solve problems with code.

Re:The fun of coding...

[Viol8]

Nice try at some conflation there but no cigar. Sports and music are meant to be watched as well as played. Watching someone typing into a text editor has never been and never will be a recreational activity. The musical equivalent would be watching the composer write down the notes or for sport watching Roger Federer do practice shots over the net for 3 hours.

"and I can assure you it has several thousand viewers when it's on, so there's your proof that there is an audience for people writing code."

All that proves is there are thousands of people with absolutely no life, not that watching the activity itself has any merit. You can put any old shit online and some bunch of mugs will watch it.

Not for me

[nospam007]

Can't do that when people watch.
I would have to actually _comment_ the code!
Oh, the horror!

"the Internet" = how many people exactly?

[gsslay]

The article is very shy about actually saying how many people contribute to, or watch, these streams.

I guess if you say you "Got the Internet To Watch People Code", it can mean just about any number from 2 to 200 million. But who's counting?

Re:"the Internet" = how many people exactly?

[Anonymous Coward]

Similar to any other channel on twitch. You may have 10 people streaming. 8 of those people have less than 100 viewers. Probably less than 10. The last two people are probably popular. One guy may get 500 and the other may get 2000.

Re:"the Internet" = how many people exactly?

[Half-pint HAL]

Nonono... you misunderstand. He didn't have the internet, then he got the internet because he wanted to watch people code. He was originally going to use trojans to take over people's webcams, but then he discovered Twitch...

Seriously ?

[Crashmarik]

I don't even enjoy watching myself code and if I am at home will have the TV running something enjoyable like Law and Order.

Could be better

[Anonymous Coward]

This is interesting and all, but not really newsworthy. Now if this somehow "taught girls to code", well then it would be the greatest thing in the world.

Example

[StripedCow]

This guy was trying a new editor named "vi", but didn't know how to properly exit it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:Example

[Anonymous Coward]

TBF, it did take a while to port vi to the emacs operating system.

Slowpoke?

[GroeFaZ]

Ludum Dare, the competition to write a game from scratch over a weekend, already has its own Twitch channel, and it has several thousand viewers across a good 20 streamers when it's on. So while the efforts of A.P. to get people to watch other people code are appreciated, he's not exactly the first.

The tedium of everyday programming...

[DavidHumus]

..is well-expressed on that site: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... - over 2 1/2 hours.

It does provide a good contrast to doing the same thing using the power of a good functional notation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
  - Conway's Game Of Life in APL - in less than 8 minutes.

Trying to trick us

[Ol Olsoc]

This is actually The Onion right? Watching someone code?

All I can think of is three in the morning, empty pizza box and can of red bull beside the keyboard, fourth night in a row, trying to get something done for a launch while everyone else is home sleeping like normal people.

All broadcast live. That'll get people wanting to code for sure.

Casey Muratori - Handmade Hero

[Alzheimers]

Since last November, Casey Muratori has been producing a nightly stream for his indie project, Handmade Hero (http://www.handmadehero.org). It's as much an informal class on low-level C programming as a game coding stream, and he's gotten quite a regular audience for it. It helps that he's also interesting to listen to - he's also on a podcast (The Jeff and Casey Show).

It actually reminds me of being back in the college dorms, coding late into the night with friends, someone tapping at the keyboard and everyone else poking suggestions or just hanging out.

Watching his stream is much more interesting than just watching someone playing a game, spewing obscenities and memes while they die over and over.

Pair programming

[Anonymous Coward]

It shall now be known as "broadcast programming" instead.

Program

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck the word 'code'. It's 'program'.

While we're at it, fuck 'Tech'. It's 'Technology'.

terms of service

[kwoff]

Of course I didn't read the article, but I was under the impression that Twitch.tv only allows game-related content (you can laugh here a bit). Twitch.tv spun off of Justin.tv , which is for general broadcasting channels. If they are doing game programming, then it's probably okay, though (I know that quill18 has done that, at least).

"his girlfriend"

[dmauer]

so they're doing this together, but apparently she doesn't have a name? ...

okay then