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Comment by Walkman | Hacker News Reader

Genuine question: What is the appeal of watching live coding? Who watches these? I'm watching code all day long, arguing about it, understanding it on my workplace, if I get home, there is no way I want to watch another guy live coding. Maybe doing my own thing when I'm free and not tied to a gazillion rules of how to do things.

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I sometimes throw a quieter stream on in the background. It makes me feel like I'm in an office space when I'm coding by myself which sometimes helps me focus.

I never usually have a stream on for more than 10-15 minutes at a time, but other than the nice sound of keyboard typing I also enjoy trying to be helpful or just poking in and seeing what other people are working on.

From my experience. It is very beginner heavy.

I used to stream and my audience was students, beginners, junior engineers etc...

I had a few senior engineers watching when I streamed more advanced Devops, React, Python etc.. But in general, that was the division.

There is a big gap in software education from the tutorial to the point of dealing with real world and real life problems, people are attracted to seeing how you would solve things that come up in real life and that's where they get most of the value.

Viewers often view this during work, so they have some white-noise type from the keyboard typing and voice.

The main point in streaming and watching streams in my mind is the sense of community, people ask A LOT of questions and get a ton of value from it (depends on the streamer)

Not everyone interested in programming works as a programmer, and not everyone who works as a programmer has good peers to learn from! I have very occasionally watched some live streamed coding, usually because I’m interested in learning more about a particular technology or a particular person’s approach to solving problems.

I find it strangely appealing. A football player may train all day long but that doesn't mean he wouldn't like to see a game on TV. But I may be strange. I find that I enjoy programming more when I'm playing a coding podcast in the background, for some reason. Perhaps because coding is a lonely activity.

I think the appeal is the same for watching any other high performance. Specifically, it can be entertaining to see how others do things, and there is potential for you to pick up some useful knowledge in the form of a problem solving technique, or maybe a workflow you haven’t considered.

But you can do that by reading code of Open Source projects, which is more effective IMO.

No... For example, let's imagine a developer needs to find the source of a bug on a big rails app. All he knows of the bug is that a certain line of logged SQL should be near the location. He knows how to trigger the bug. A simple method call triggers a myriad of unknown things, one of which is where the bug lies. He gets the idea to write a method that takes a regex and a block and temporarily override the logging method while the block executes so that it outputs a backtrace when logging a line that matches the given regex. The method is called, the backtrace is output, and the bug is found.

Development ideas and methodologies like that don't appear in code.

Well, you can learn actively from researching opens source projects. Or you can learn passively by watching others code.

The first is more effective but the second is easier and more entertaining.

I disagree with this. I think you are not passive watching live coding almost the same way like you are pair programming and you are the observer.

Watching a stream is passive, like watching a movie. Pair programming is interactive, as you are right next to the person.

Unless you're commenting on the stream, it's a very passive act of learning.

You feel connected and motivated. It also can be fascinating seeing how people go about doing things (well or not).

I don't watch people code, but I do watch people study (or have it on while I code).

Yesterday, I was doing some after-work hobby-coding while listening to ChilledCow (on YouTube). There's a cartoon girl studying and writing in a notebook. The animation revamps endlessly, while lofi hip-hop is playing in the background. I have it on, because its very soothing to have something on and grind through a task after work.

This is actually a thing. Another channel "The Strive Studies" features a girl studying for her medical licence (something like that). Just jazz music and 1-3 hours of her reading and typing.

Basically, anything can become social, and coding/studying while someone is coding/studying can become highly motivating. You know they are going through the same stress and working towards some goal. Its fun to be part of that process. But, it somehow opens your mind up that "you are not alone".

So, yea, virtual study/coding groups are a great way to motivate.

ChilledCow - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHW1oY26kxQ The Strive Studies - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmDbesougG0

I watch Adam13531's BotLand twitch channel when I work at home. He's also been posting them on youtube for the past few years. I am interested to see how other talented programmers work, without having to look over my colleagues' shoulders at work.

Adam keeps a really well organized programmers' log and todo list, and I've incorporated that into my own daily work.

I occasionally watch programmers stream, usually it's game devs. I find it quite relaxing, there are usually opportunities to support the developer by offering some knowledge, and I often end up learning something too.

Another genuine question: What is the appeal of streaming live coding? Why would you want a bunch of strangers watching you write? Does an audience help the process in some way, or is it a way to feel less lonely, or what?

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