I finished filming 12 hours of a coding tutorial: crossword puzzle construction | Hacker News Reader

I finished filming 12 hours of a coding tutorial: crossword puzzle construction

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213 pointshboismylife30 comments

This is great and I applaud you for the effort that this took to put together.

I keep wanting to do something like this, but there is so much already out there with people that know more than I do that I feel it would just end up in the ether.

There's always going to be someone more knowledgeable on a topic than the person teaching others. I think the more fair question to ask is if you are providing value and teaching other people who stumble onto your content.

Absolutely. Expertise definitely helps in explaining a subject, but newbies can also get a lot of value learning from someone who hasn’t forgotten what it’s like to be a beginner.

I'm addition, putting content out there is also a good way to learn from the feedback.

Exactly. It helps to realize a lot of content you publish is for the stumblers, people who by random chance will come upon your content and it may be the first of its kind that they have seen. New people are always being created.

Instead of considering how much you know compared to others, consider how well you can explain, illustrate and demonstrate what you know in order to transfer your knowledge to others.

Teaching is skill and like other skills, some are naturally better than others and teaching itself can be learned, practised and improved.

I doesn't need to end up in the ether. The value/attractiveness of such course is not only the result of author's knowledge but also his/her personality, sense of humour, even voice timbre as well examples and excresises used and so long. And as these aspects are subjective there is one-size-fits-all-style so there is always a niche you can cater to with your own style.

I usually watch series like this one not, only, because of the knowledge content but looking for inspiration on methodology, workflow, thinking process, solution ideas, etc.

If you do a project others have not done, even if you don't explain it as well as someone else might, you are still giving a particular type of knowledge others did not, because the actual project DOES matter since it can lure people in who might not be by other tutorials.

I can't imagine how much work that must have taken.

Amazing work, it's video series like these that get people hooked on programming.

It's fascinating to watch someone code in an environment so different to the one I'm used to (vim, no highlighting, no formatting, no realtime errors or lints). What's more important though than any of these is to have such a great grasp of the code that the author can talk through everything. That's a great exercise no matter what environment you have.

It shows real mastery in a given tool, and if it works for him, then great stuff.

Oh, neat. I just started playing around with a new crossword puzzle project earlier this week.

I don't really want to use C++, but I'll bet I can get a lot of helpful design concepts from this.

Not directly related, but do people like programming tutorials to have a video of the person speaking? I personally feel like it just wastes space and distracts from the content, but this seem to be the norm.

I don't know what it is, but I actually find a visual of the speaker to improve the tutorial, even if it's not strictly necessary for the material. I think it helps with engagement.

What a coincidence. I've also been looking into crossword generation recently. Have a look (https://bohlender.pro/blog/generating-crosswords-with-sat-sm...) if you're interested in a SAT-based solution. However, now I'll have to watch these videos for further insights.

Anyone aware of something similar, but for teaching more C++ concepts (eg templates, smart pointers, move semantics) to someone with C or Java experience?

I too am wondering about this. There's a lot to learn, and it doesn't help that a lot of the info focuses on older C++ more than the modern variety.

I love doing projects like this. I have crossword puzzle written in JavaScript that I never showed anyone, haha. Cool thing you recorded it and share with people.

I first read this as the answers in the crossword puzzle would be code (or CS terms?).

12 down: The first thing to print in a new language.

3 across: Spolsky's challenge.

15 down: A sort method.

16 across: Version 3.1415 .

This is awesome! I skimmed through a couple of the videos, and I absolutely cannot wait to go through it in full this weekend.

Congrats! Looks interesting. Do you plan to record similar videos for other languages?

This is cool! Glad it’s in C++ too, I’ve been playing with it recently

URL shorteners are auto-blocked when submitting URLs. It's better to submit the full URL (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLg4AoophFZWZ7Llifowo-...) or homepage https://codingforcrosswords.com/

Should also have the `[video]` tag and probably a more appropriate title.

If this is the meta nit-picking thread: "Show HN" should be in the title.

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