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Comment by JeremyChase | Hacker News Reader

Screencasts can be really annoying, and I prefer the asciicast versions of RyanB's casts. However, I still watch the videos, usually when I have some downtime and want to 'work' with someone else. For me, I do all my Rails dev solo, so all I have is vim, irc, and mailing lists.

Screencasts are fun.

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I agree. Screencasts are really fun, especially if the lecturer isn't boring and monotone!

I noticed something while talking with people on the subject - it's not only about the lecturer, at all.

It's just a matter of taste: some people really hate screencasts, while other really love them (see on stackoverflow.com for debates on that topic!).

You won't be able to please both (unless you have something similar to asciicasts maybe ?)

Thanks to the power of mechanicalturk, I think I could pay them to transcript the videos.

Interesting idea. I'd be curious to hear if they turn out a good transcript or whether their lack of understanding of the subject material makes it garbled. I guess with enough people doing it, you can check out the most common transcriptions and go with those...

that's how mixergy does it

If you are to do a truly high quality screencast, you would need to have a script (and code) written ahead of time anyway. Otherwise you would fall afoul of the other complaints in this thread -- overly long, rambling and unfocused.

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