Watching People Code Is Becoming an (Even Bigger) Thing

itwbennett writes: Faithful Slashdot readers may recall the story of Adam Wulf, who spent two weeks live-streaming himself writing a mobile app. The phenomenon has quickly become thing, by which we mean a business. Twitch.TV, Watch People Code (which is an offshoot of the subreddit by the same name), Ludum Dare, and, of course, YouTube, are bursting with live or archived streams of lots of people writing lots of code for lots of different things. And just this week, Y Combinator-backed startup Livecoding.TV launched. The site has signed up 40,000 users since its beta went live in February, but unlike the other sites in this space what it doesn't have (and doesn't have plans for) is advertising. As co-founder Jamie Green told ITworld: 'We have some different ideas around monetisation in the pipeline, but for now we are just focussed on building a community around live education.'

Comments

Who watches this crap?

[enigma32]

This is even worse than a stream watching someone play a game. Who wastes their time with these things?

If you want to improve your coding skill you're better off practicing and reviewing code written by those more experienced than you, not watching someone "in the act" of doing it.

Re:Who watches this crap?

[i.r.id10t]

Depends on how the streamer works. Just watching text appear in an editor with the sound of cheetos being munched? Not very helpful.

But, if there is a running commentary about how they are thinking of solving a particular (sub?) problem, deciding what arguments a function needs, what it needs to return back to the calling location, etc. can certainly help with the "How do I solve a problem" type stuff.

 

Re:Who watches this crap?

[Austerity Empowers]

I don't know who does this, but I'm waiting for the market of "watching paint dry" to start picking up, then I'm buying a can of paint and charging $300 for an hour of viewing.

Re:Who watches this crap?

[RabidReindeer]

It's nonsense. I do my coding in my head. You want to "watch me code", get an EEG or a CT scan.

When I'm sitting at the keyboard, I'm not "coding", I'm typing. If I have coded correctly, then I'm typing fast. If I haven't, I either retire from the keyboard and revise my coding, sit and stare vacantly while I'm revising my coding, or cut-and-paste.

Here's a clue, then. When I look my most "productive", I'm not. When I look the most busy then I'm not doing my most valuable work. In fact, like a lot of people, the really valuable work is done while I'm in the shower or in bed not-sleeping in the wee hours.

And THAT, children, is why I get surly when you come and interrupt me while I'm "just sitting there". Because while it's irritating to be interrupted when I'm trying to get it all typed in, it's enraging to have someone push a cow in front of my train of thought.

Re:Who watches this crap?

[freeze128]

Are you new to coding? Have you ever wanted to write a program or app, but didn't know where to begin? You can read books about programming, but that only takes you so far. Sometimes, you just want to see how other (successful) people do it.

Every single book I have read about C++ programming tells you how the language works, but suspiciously says something to the effect of "Using your compiler is beyond the scope of this book".

Terrific!

You can learn how to program, but you will never see the rewards of your effort because you don't know what linking/compiling is or what object/executable code is.

Re:Who watches this crap?

[Rasperin]

This is exactly what I was thinking, the best way I've found to help jr programmers is a kinda pair programming where I explain things while they watch. When I run into a fork, I talk out loud about which route (and obviously take any input if offered, which rarely is, sometimes I push them to think about a complex question too but the idea is to keep mobility). And then assign them the other half of the day with there own tasks.

With modern languages there are just so many "you should use this over that" and pitfalls that you can run into sometimes having the fish can be more helpful. (I really want to explain why this metaphor works so please bear (pun caught, now intended) with me) You need energy to fish, also you have to learn how to clean and cook the fish which is best done by the experienced individual the first couple of times so you don't die or have the shits from a simple mistake.

Anyways, food for though. :D

Translation

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> We have some different ideas around monetisation in the pipeline, but for now we are just focussed on building a community around live education

Translation: we are going to be ad-free to grab as many users as possible until we finalize the sale of the company to an appropriate advertiser. (That's pretty much how these start-ups work.)

People who really have no life

[Viol8]

As the OP said - if you want to learn to code then review and practice. Watching is pointless.

It's not about passively watching

[mtippett]

As a viewer, it's about learning technique and thought processes. Identifying issues, attempting a particular thought process, only those that provide a strong narrative to the work they are doing will be likely "stars". Watching how good programmers (assumption) deal with their environment and the typical problems they face. Seeing how people top down or bottom up write code is very interesting (within limits).

As a broadcasting coder, it takes a fair amount of personal confidence to do it, particular in this field. Having to verbalize what you are thinking and how you are considering the problems in front of you is actually quite challenging. Those that do well in the broadcasting scene will most likely be strong professionally as well.

That said, I personally don't understand the fandom about broadcast games to the level that it has taken. I get the benefits, but I don't get the market.

This should be entertaining

[Snotnose]

Arrive at office. Read email. Get coffee. Figure out what I need to code today. Start a for loop. Change CDs. More coffee. Flesh out for loop. Look up String API, find a method better than what I was after. Scrap everything. Lunchtime!

Collaborate with a colleague. Get a Mountain Dew. Change CDs. Write glue code to make shiney new String API do what's required. Waste an hour explaining something basic to some marketing dude in a different state. Get code to compile. Scratch butt. Test/debug. Change CDs. Check working code into git. Figure out what needs to be coded next. Manager enters office, informs me requirements have changed and what I just checked into git is now wrong. Read /.. Go home.

Re:This should be entertaining

[ZecretZquirrel]

No bodily functions? Iron man.

It's not such a bad idea

[asylumx]

I've actually done something similar to this in the workplace before and found it to be very effective. Basically I scheduled a meeting for the last hour or so of the workday Friday and invited the other developers to come jump on with me. I shared my screen, we had an open mic, but basically I talked through what I was doing and they had a chance to see how my thought process works and also to make suggestions or ask questions. It turned out to be a good chance for the more junior folks to learn from me and some of the other experienced developers and at the same time it made us think about what we were doing at a deeper level, which is something you can get complacent in after you've been doing it a while.

This is something I did for several weeks in a row, but the last time was at least two years ago -- and yet as recently as last month I've had some of the folks that participated bring it up and comment how much they learned from it. If you think about it, it's basically pair programming on steroids.