Play by Play: Zed Shaw | Hacker News Reader

Play by Play: Zed Shaw

peepcode.com

133 pointskmfrk35 comments

Watched the whole thing. Fairly good.

Rather than the approach to hacking together this specific prototype, the more general nuggets of advice were (predictably) the good stuff.

Seeing the Python part being built up at fairly high speed was interesting, but the R part was a bit fumbling and the graphs nonsensical (both because it was essentially random data, and you didn't even know what the Python part was doing at that point in the video).

(Different type of thing, but here's the best Zed video I've seen: http://vimeo.com/2723800)

I enjoyed it, but it wasn't as professional and dense as I expected from the description. The edition is a little bit rough, cutting the video when they are talking, etc. But the advice given was very sound and Zed is a really nice teacher/guy.

Glad you liked it. Yeah, my R is a little rusty but hopefully you got the general idea of gathering stats and then tracking them to see if you can improve them.

Yes, certainly. I'm also very glad to pay money for this type of thing because, for whatever human reason, screencasts click with me and I retain a lot from them compared to reading.

The ACL is Dead is the best video from Zed I've seen so far. It's also a must watch for every young programmer/student, Zed provides insight how things in most of the big companies work.

(Different type of thing, but here's the best Zed video I've seen: http://vimeo.com/2723800)*
Great talk! I really enjoyed how you explained where the business people are coming from, described the pains of being an engineer to the crowd, and then tried to describe a middle path. Very enlightened.

Probably no point in me commenting just to agree with other posters, but that "The ACL is Dead" talk is fantastic.

Great idea for a peepcode series. I thoroughly enjoyed Zed's 0MQ talk from PyCon this year [1]. I liked it so much that I dug up all of the Zed I could find on Youtube, Vimeo, and Blip. I'm very interested in this product.
[1] http://blip.tv/file/4878885?utm_source=player_embedded

I saw Zed live too at SuperConf in Florida, I had dinner with him, he's really what he represents, just a very good programmer, professional and guy, by far the best I know in our field.
He gave me some advices about my career and programming in general (and specific: Testing in Python), we even joke about silly stuff (e.g.: The Social Network movie).

Professional is not a word I would use for Zed. Someone that's professional would not be as confrontational and antagonistic as Zed is. He seems to be that way, often to his own detriment.
With that said, the aggressive side makes him a very unique individual that many of us highly respect. I don't aspire to be like the guy, but he sure does motivate me to step up my standards and accomplish more. Zed's just way more interesting than Professional.

He's commenting on Zed the actual person, not Zed the on-line persona that you're talking about. These aren't necessarily the same things.

Professional is not a word I would use for Zed. Someone that's professional would not be as confrontational and antagonistic as Zed is. He seems to be that way, often to his own detriment.
Oh please, can we just give this tired old tripe a rest already?

How did I not know about peepcode? I don't mean to hijack this post but: is it worth the money? Does anyone have experience with their videos?

The ones I have bought have been decent, but nothing to blow me away. I'd watch a preview and ask people who've seen that specific episode before buying.

I love Peepcode, the NodeJS tutorial is great, explain to you everything you'd probably learn in days of reading. I also got some VIM videos and a MacRuby video.
In my opinion they have the best tech screencasts on the web

When I bought peepcodes, they were always great. Usually including a couple of hours of video with an accompanying pdf. The production quality is excellent and for the price, you can't beat it.

Thanks for the replies. I'll have a look at some of the previews on offer.

I'm a big fan. If it's something you've just heard about or don't know anything about, there's usually no better way to get up to speed than peepcode. For stuff you know a little about, it can be slow because they take the time to lay a good foundation.
If you put a dollar value on your time, PeepCode is a no-brainer.

I agree 100%. Also would add these new "play by play" videos are great especially if you are a freelancer or not working with other awesome folks. They really give you some insight on not just how to do something, but what their thinking while they do it. I've picked up several Vim tricks and just general workflow tips. Looking forward to more of these.

I've been considering joining, but it looks like their output has been low lately, and there's not as much order as I'd like.

I'm a big fan. I've bought & gone through several of their videos, especially his Ruby, Rails, & iOS stuff.
Pretty light on content but great for getting started & running in a given area. Geoffrey is a great teacher.
I'm an experienced programmer who already knows a large variety of languages, so this is only my perspective.

Peepcode is awesome. This is from the 'play by play' series, which is probably one of the only places you can get to watch an expert work.
The other topical videos are great as well. It must be an incredible amount of work that goes into scripting, programming, recording and editing them and the result is a really high quality learning tool.
I prefer to watch them twice through. Once to just soak it up in one pass, and a second time to dig in and play around with things as the video progresses. They are well bookmarked as well, so you can skip ahead or back to a specific section easily.
Every one of them that I've purchased has been well worth the money. I've purchased tons of books over the years that were a huge disappointment and cost way more. You can't go wrong with a PeepCode.

My wallet hates you.

Your career thanks you.

I've purchased a bunch of them, but I never felt I got as much out of them as Ryan Bates' Railscasts. For one, peepcodes are too long to sit through in one session and follow along. Secondly, there is a bunch of extraneous stuff in each peepcode that I didn't feel was really useful but I had to sit through to get to the good stuff. Railscasts are seldom more than 10 minutes and I can generally work through them as they play with few pauses.

The unlimited yearly plan made me a more productive programmer and it kept me up to date on what I should be learning next.

I've been a subscriber for a few years and I'm mixed based on my personal learning style. I learn better by reading and find it tough to find time to sit through the screencasts (any screencast where the visual is not integral to the topic). I always learn something from Peepcode screencasts, but think that I could have read it in half the time.
I would rate the quality of the screencasts as high. If you learn well from "lecture", I would not hesitate to recommend their offerings.

The Play by plays are awesome. If you just look at a finished product, code looks so effortless. However, even experts struggle getting it right: only through understanding the problem, trial-and-error and a lot of refactoring does code become "effortless".
I recommend the PbP of Gary Bernhardt: great tips on VIM, Git and RSpec.

Gary now is selling a subscription service of his own with screencasts: https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/screencasts. There's a free sample one (https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/screencasts/catalog/how-a...) and then it's $9 a month.

I liked his earlier Play by Play preview videos better, where you actually got a small snippet of the conversation as a sample, so you could get a feel for each of the featured coder's style and tone:
http://peepcode.com/products/play-by-play-fhwang
This one was all content overview and too much of a glowing summary of Zed's accomplishments (a third of the preview) at the start for my taste.

It would be more interesting to have a 3 month timelapse of Zed's screen. That would explain his productivity better :)

Hmmm, that could be interesting actually. It might be possible to replicate that with source code checkins on a project.

I'm watching it; the format is a little bit strange. Mostly just Zed giving tips to another guy, should get better.
Almost 2 hrs of video.

Just days after my unlimited account expires.

If you really want to, just e-mail them and ask for it.
The folks at peepcode are fantastic. Very pragmatic and polite.
And you have nothing to lose. :-)

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