Ask HN: Why isn't there a twitch.tv for programming?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8039299

by vsergiu • 12 years ago

9 10 12 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

jflowers45• 12 years ago

Interesting question. One thing I'll chime in with is that one indie game developer I follow on twitter (has a game on xbox one and a bunch of articles about his energy hook game because he used to work on a spiderman console game) uses twitch to stream GAME programming...

proof: https://twitter.com/happionlabs/status/430457251699372032

minimaxir• 12 years ago

I've actually thought about this. Programming isn't as well-suited for constant live streaming because:

a) The viewer can't leave the stream in the background (as you would television)

b) A very large amount of dead air where nothing is happening and the streamer needs to fill dead air. (even worse if you have to debug something)

c) It would require a very optimized overlay that makes it easy to see the code at sub-1080p resolutions. (almost no screencast even now does this because it impacts usability)

d) The presenters need to be socially engaging; given the demographics of people who are the best coders, this is not a guarantee.

I can work up a prototype stream layout that I might give it a try sometime in the future.

gabrarlz• 12 years ago

Hello,

I'm founder of http://CodersTV.com . My name is Gabriel Pugliese. Actually you are partially right:

a) I can't see what's the problem with this. Also you always can watch it later if you want, because videos are always recorded and will be available on the platform.

b) That's true for twitch.tv too, when crash happens or ppl go grab some food (I watch twitch every day). Most of time, coders that broadcast do ppt presentations like they are doing live presentations in live events. Sometimes they just do random conversation about a technology and I think there is so much space for that right now, because people really want to chat and hear what experienced coders think about many new technologies.

c) True. CodersTV is built on top of Hangouts and they accept HD quality broadcasts (which is enough for coding sessions). I've chosen that because for me it's so hard to build that from nothing.

d) This is also true, but there are lots of non-social presenters at twitch.tv too. They just simply start playing with a background music and speak very often, without their heads on the screen. And it's so valid.

Other considerations from lots of research I've done:

1) People are anxious to see experienced coders doing a real application real-time. Not only the basics of technology X (that is what we find most nowadays). They are also willing to see how things are done in other companies or startups and I think it's a very good way for those companies attract attention and increase brand loyalty.

2) People also want to watch fun and not-so-serious broadcasts about programming and technology. And that's what we are trying to do at CodersTV. Last 3 videos were about a Hackathon that happened at Wayra São Paulo - Brazil. Everyone loved it.

3) There is a lot of space for periodic broadcasts. We are going to start tomorrow a show called "Meteor Thursdays" (brazilian portuguese). It's basically some Meteor (the nodejs framework) users that will talk about cool things that happened during the week.

TL;DR There is a lot of space for those broadcasts. If you are interested on doing some, send an e-mail to me at contact@coderstv.com and I will help you with a lot of things. I'm sure it will be very fun (I'm having lots of)

Cya

WWWade• 12 years ago

I love writing code but watching that sounds boring as fuck. Just browse github if you're bored.

n0body• 12 years ago

I agree, although I do enjoy watching talks and things, well listening to them mostly. Usually stuff from http://perltv.org/ bit I couldn't imagine wanting to watch someone program. I can't imagine someone would want to watch me either.

Anyone have a reason to watch live coding streams? If so, why?

jordsmi• 12 years ago

I think it's a good idea. I agree that it can be a bit boring in between the downtime like minimaxir said, but if you build a community in your chat it's not bad.

An example is twitch.tv/dvcolgan who is streaming at the time of this post.

enthdegree• 12 years ago

I believe a bunch of ``high-profile game developers'' like Markus Persson livestream their screens & webcams during 'crash-programming' events like the Ludum Dare. (IIRC it was on Twitch or some clone of it?)

One of my buddies has livestreamed last-minute web/product development right before launch of some Kickstarter campaigns (which have turned out to be really successful).

I know of a guy who, at least for several months, had set up his office webcam as a constant, public livestream of his desk and face as he stared programming at the computer screen. I think he might still have it going.

Of course these are all kind of one-off things, and I don't know of any dedicated website.

tekknolagi• 12 years ago

I actually made a small utility for this that utilizes mkfifo, script, and netcat.

I am thinking about making it into a web service but I don't know how.

thoughtpalette• 12 years ago

You could use justin.tv which is much more generalized.

gustavodemari• 12 years ago

There is a twitch.TV for programming, check http://coderstv.com

I believe that is in beta, but i see this iniative with good eyes.

Ask HN: Why isn't there a twitch.tv for programming?

Related Stories