Watching highly-effective programmers navigate, explain, and modify code can be a career-changing experience.
If you're not working in a place where these kinds of programmers accrue, you might never get the experience. Thank goodness for youtube and screen-recorders!
If you're reading this, antirez: thank you for making these, they're really special!
I also recommend "Hacking with Andrew and Brad: tip.golang.org" [1]. They are part of the Go team. It's just something to watch the pros doing live coding. By the way, what's with antirez's colorscheme? I wonder if he really uses that blue background or is it just for the video.
This is great! Can we replace the original article with this, it's much higher quality than most of the ones listed and fills a gap in Youtube content I'd never been able to find (though I haven't tried recently) - that is: legitimately intermediate/advanced content.
I was just watching an old YouTube video of a couple guys throwing a giant rock off a bridge into a river in a remote part of the U.S with no one around. It was 20 seconds long.
If it were produced in 2020, you'd have 10 minutes of useless preamble including discussion about how hyped they are to throw a rock, how difficult it is to carry a rock, fake drama about being followed by non-existent security, a drone shot of the environment, how awesome it was to throw a rock, and random memes. Use my promo code ROCKMAN to post your first job free on ZipRecruiter and hire your own rock thrower, and don't forget to Like this video to smash that Subscribe button!
Yeah, this article oozes of "we need to create content that gets eyeballs and backlinks to market our website/product", which unfortunately is all too common these days.
Next time someone tries to find youtube channels for programming, they will end up on this list, rather than finding some real recommendations by real persons.
The "author" of this article is even "Team Codegiant", it's a red flag when no real person wants to put their name on content. Which is especially funny since throughout the article the author refers to themselves in first person.
Every time I cook and look up a recipe for the ingredients I have on hand my whole family has to listen to me rant and rave about this phenomenon. I clicked through the link above, scrolled and scrolled, figured out I had been duped, and gave up to come back here for the comments to commiserate.
Am I the only one who thinks watching videos is an inefficient way to learn new programming techniques?
There's no way to copy and it's hard to remember where a specific concept was so that you can reference it again. Sometimes, the video or audio quality is bad enough that you can't even really tell what's going on.
I like them principally because I can actually see what they did rather than them writing what they think they did in an article.. this is a common problem with documentation where if you follow it to the letter, there's still some other thing they failed to mention.
Articles are much better once you're up to speed and knowledgeable about a space, but I find videos ideal to set the scene when I'm totally new to something so I can mimic their actual activity in getting things going.
Videos are great when the narrator reflects his/her thought process and adds relevant history(of how things come to that) when doing things.
Articles can do it even better but can get very lengthy and people looking to quickly learn how to do something will seek short, to the point articles and missing out on significant depth.
Of course just watching a video won't make you learn something but I think the situation is the same with articles. Remember school times, the articles were not that lengthy(I mean STEM of course) but to truly grasp something you would have to go over it again and again and try to solve problems by yourselves.
I think the article have the advantage of extremely fast skimmability, you can even condense everything into a single page and use it as a reference because you can skim to the point in a single glance.
For my first stab at learning something new I usually try on my own, but when I'm getting lost or things aren't working as expected I like videos, especially ones that weren't prerecorded. The number of times documentation either takes a mental leap or actually skips a step can be frustrating. It's also helpful to see where someone else makes mistakes because it's often the ones I would've made also.
> Am I the only one who thinks watching videos is an inefficient way to learn new programming techniques?
Just watching wouldn't be of help. Watching and doing will probably get you far. As for how efficient they are, it probably depends on the quality of the video and the student.
> There's no way to copy and it's hard to remember where a specific concept was so that you can reference it again.
That's true for books, audio, class lectures, etc. But at least with a video, you can always go back to the part your didn't understand - unlike say a class lecture.
> Sometimes, the video or audio quality is bad enough that you can't even really tell what's going on.
I like videos a lot but I absolutely need to write the code along with the person on the screen otherwise it doesn't stick. Coding Train [1] is a recent example that has worked well for me.
Really depends on the type of programming. The "Coding Train" channel is pretty much all about animations, and it works really well for that. Same for things like OpenGL, Computer Vision, CSS, or UI design where the results are highly visual.
To me videos are more akin to conference talks. They are interesting when they focus on presenting an idea, a technique or a pattern with simple code. An exercise where the code itself doesn't matter too much essentially.
The miss efficient way to learn is to use all medias available appropriately. You can integrate video lessons into habits that wouldn’t be practical in other forms.
i think it depends on what type of learner you are. i learn much easier through video than through text, so for me a well made presentation, that i watch with my full attention while taking notes (i don't generally look at the notes after, but it helps commit things to memory), is a much more efficient way to learn about stuff. shame that there aren't that many videos beyond basics stuff
>, I have tried learning to code from YouTube videos but I really don't recommend it
Videos can work better for learning visual UI tasks of programming. E.g. learning how to navigate visual IDEs such as Jetbrains, MS Visual Studio, Apple Xcode, Qt Creator, Amazon AWS dashboard, etc.
If the above were all reduced to text-based materials, you'd end up with a bunch of static screen shots which misses the movement of the mouse and the button clicks that showed how the IDE changed from one state to the next.
On the other hand... if you're primarily learning the syntax of a language or studying the Big-O properties of an algorithm, you don't need a talking head on a video to explain it. It's more efficient to just read the text.
I think everyone has their own preference to learn but I second this recommendation. Videos work well to have a friendly face explain how things work and get interest generated, but if you intend to level up your programming skill you are better off reading code documentation and googling your way through every concept that needs explaination. Videos don't allow you to navigate away from the original learning path. I personally keep finding myself in situations where I am reading something up and want to fork out to get a good grasp on a concept being discussed. Text is your friend.
I've found one YouTube-based technique that helps me sometimes.
Basically, search youtube for some specific topic (eg "MediatR" b/c I'm working in .NET)
Using the relevant results, create a playlist and order it with the shortest videos first, or in numerical order if some are part of a series.
Then, start watching the video's. You'll get some garbage, some useful insights, and some really solid advice. Stop when you've had enough and you're at least in a better place to get on with your own work in that particular topic.
Good youtube videos give you the benefit of some context and opinion around the topic. You can't get that with documentation because it typically takes too much of a "reference" approach that isn't helpful if you're just starting but need to get something done.
Stackoverflow works if you got a specific question and can navigate past the smug a-holes, but it also eschews context and advice though in a different way than reference documentation.
Of course, the best thing you can do is to have a kind mentor that will patiently answer your questions, or better, ask YOU questions to guide your learning. Sadly, that's not always possible.
I know a guy who apparently has photographic memory. When a new programming language comes out, he buys the book, and reads it, and then he's fluent in that language.
It's terrifying to watch.
And the guy had no idea that's not how people do it. He saw me fiddling with a new language, and was baffled with what I was doing.
Given that many readers of HackerNews have an entrepreneurial side and are therefore interested not just in software — but in the business of and marketing of software —, you might get value out of my channel.
Basically my story is that is that I solo-bootstrapped a web-app and have lived from it independently for over a decade. Because of these circumstances I face no red tape in showing the code, the analytics, or the online advertising campaigns I use on screen, and this makes for a more concrete, example-filled treatment of the full gamut of what goes into running a web-based software business.
So if you're an indie-hacker or software founder that does (or at least _should_ be doing) online marketing, I think you'll get something out of my story:
In general its tough to learn from videos, BUT its really enlightening to see demos of people's workflows, how often they test, how long it takes to compile run. Demos where people have problems, make mistakes, can't figure out why obvious things are going wrong, skippping a bunch of unit testing, hard code credentials etc. Hearing other people gave up on XYZ is reaffirming.
Just grab a book and read it, most of these channels are just a waste of time; they just keep going over the basics over and over again with long videos that could just have been a 1 minute read
As an online coding educator, here’s my beef with online coding education:
Most videos, courses, and articles you find don’t teach you much. They’re a recipe for you to follow. Do this then that then this.
If you’re building exactly what the author is building, great! You’ve built it.
Then comes a new problem. Or an interview question. It’s actually the same thing you just built, but you don’t have the understanding to realize that. So you look for a completely new tutorial to follow.
This is a losing proposition. You’re learning a lot of recipes by rote and not understanding much. With months or years of pain, you’ll start to pick up patterns by induction.
Not a great way to learn.
It’s like learning to cook an italian risotto and then being flumoxxed by veggie rice. Even though they’re the same thing.
Now here’s where it gets worse: It seems the market (or at least google searches) wants these rote recipes. It’s what gets you the most traffic.
I don’t know that there’s a solution. It’s probably the same problem as crash diets and everyone asking for the best font to use on a VC pitch deck.
The biggest thing about learning programming from Youtube channels is that they just get something up and running. There is no talk about modularisation or testing. Everything gets dumped right into main and right into the http router handler function. Look up any video on how to build an http server in nodejs - and it is like that.
I enjoy learning from videos and have paid in the past for some courses. My library has a free subscription to LinkedIn Learning (the old Lynda platform) and highly recommend it.
[+] [-] gen220|5 years ago|reply
Episode 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBrnmciV9fM
Watching highly-effective programmers navigate, explain, and modify code can be a career-changing experience.
If you're not working in a place where these kinds of programmers accrue, you might never get the experience. Thank goodness for youtube and screen-recorders!
If you're reading this, antirez: thank you for making these, they're really special!
[+] [-] diehunde|5 years ago|reply
[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rZ-JorHJEY
[+] [-] MiroF|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] raobit|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] geerlingguy|5 years ago|reply
Then, waaay down at the bottom, the actual list of YouTube channels.
Seriously, this is worse than those recipes where you have to get through three anecdotes about cooking with grandma.
[+] [-] colmvp|5 years ago|reply
If it were produced in 2020, you'd have 10 minutes of useless preamble including discussion about how hyped they are to throw a rock, how difficult it is to carry a rock, fake drama about being followed by non-existent security, a drone shot of the environment, how awesome it was to throw a rock, and random memes. Use my promo code ROCKMAN to post your first job free on ZipRecruiter and hire your own rock thrower, and don't forget to Like this video to smash that Subscribe button!
[+] [-] chucky|5 years ago|reply
Next time someone tries to find youtube channels for programming, they will end up on this list, rather than finding some real recommendations by real persons.
The "author" of this article is even "Team Codegiant", it's a red flag when no real person wants to put their name on content. Which is especially funny since throughout the article the author refers to themselves in first person.
Edit: and check out the submitter's post history. 15 submissions - all for codegiant.io: https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=spiderjako22
[+] [-] thebeefytaco|5 years ago|reply
* Traversy Media: https://www.youtube.com/user/TechGuyWeb
* 3Blue1Brown: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYO_jab_esuFRV4b17AJtAw
* ThePrimeagen: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8ENHE5xdFSwx71u3fDH5Xw
* Gaurav Sen: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRPMAqdtSgd0Ipeef7iFsKw
* Jon Gjengset: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_iD0xppBwwsrM9DegC5cQQ
* Two Minute Papers: https://www.youtube.com/user/keeroyz
* Raymond Hettinger (no channel): https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Raymond+Hetting...
* Simple Programmer: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRxWW_Ncs308nW4An23Yeig
* The Coding Train: https://www.youtube.com/user/shiffman
* Academind: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSJbGtTlrDami-tDGPUV9-w
* Derek Banas: https://www.youtube.com/user/derekbanas
* Mark Lewis: https://www.youtube.com/user/DrMarkCLewis
* Dev Ed: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClb90NQQcskPUGDIXsQEz5Q
* The Net Ninja: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCW5YeuERMmlnqo4oq8vwUpg
* Fun Fun Function: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCO1cgjhGzsSYb1rsB4bFe4Q
* Computerphile: https://www.youtube.com/user/Computerphile
* Bisqwit: https://www.youtube.com/user/Bisqwit
* ThinMatrix: https://www.youtube.com/user/ThinMatrix
* Gary of Destroy All of Software (non-youtube): https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/screencasts#:~:text=Destr....
* PatrickJMT: https://www.youtube.com/user/patrickJMT
* Ben Awad: https://www.youtube.com/user/99baddawg
* Google Chrome Developers: https://www.youtube.com/user/ChromeDevelopers
[+] [-] santiagobasulto|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] murgaan|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dfxm12|5 years ago|reply
There's no way to copy and it's hard to remember where a specific concept was so that you can reference it again. Sometimes, the video or audio quality is bad enough that you can't even really tell what's going on.
[+] [-] petercooper|5 years ago|reply
Articles are much better once you're up to speed and knowledgeable about a space, but I find videos ideal to set the scene when I'm totally new to something so I can mimic their actual activity in getting things going.
[+] [-] mrtksn|5 years ago|reply
Articles can do it even better but can get very lengthy and people looking to quickly learn how to do something will seek short, to the point articles and missing out on significant depth.
Of course just watching a video won't make you learn something but I think the situation is the same with articles. Remember school times, the articles were not that lengthy(I mean STEM of course) but to truly grasp something you would have to go over it again and again and try to solve problems by yourselves.
I think the article have the advantage of extremely fast skimmability, you can even condense everything into a single page and use it as a reference because you can skim to the point in a single glance.
[+] [-] andybak|5 years ago|reply
It's so god damn slow.
To be honest - it's the speech bit more than the video bit. Reading is better than listening to someone talk in nearly every way.
[+] [-] APhoenixRises|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] disown|5 years ago|reply
Just watching wouldn't be of help. Watching and doing will probably get you far. As for how efficient they are, it probably depends on the quality of the video and the student.
> There's no way to copy and it's hard to remember where a specific concept was so that you can reference it again.
That's true for books, audio, class lectures, etc. But at least with a video, you can always go back to the part your didn't understand - unlike say a class lecture.
> Sometimes, the video or audio quality is bad enough that you can't even really tell what's going on.
So watch better quality videos?
[+] [-] jcynix|5 years ago|reply
Some rare videos definitely are worth the time, like those of 3Blue1Brown or the excellent Jamie Windsor (on photography).
[+] [-] shortlived|5 years ago|reply
[1] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvjgXvBlbQiydffZU7m1_aw
[+] [-] gmiller123456|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dudul|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] appletrotter|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] asddubs|5 years ago|reply
bad audio is a killer for sure, though.
[+] [-] notdang|5 years ago|reply
I've seen people who go first to youtube to search for solutions to their programming struggle.
[+] [-] abnry|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mohamez|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Splendor|5 years ago|reply
Like physical books?
[+] [-] jungletime|5 years ago|reply
Tech with Tim (Beginner) https://www.youtube.com/c/TechWithTim/videos
George Hotz (Advanced) https://www.youtube.com/c/commaaiarchive/videos
BNT (Life Risking) https://www.youtube.com/c/BNTfullHDvideo/videos
[+] [-] KaiIrwin|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jasode|5 years ago|reply
Videos can work better for learning visual UI tasks of programming. E.g. learning how to navigate visual IDEs such as Jetbrains, MS Visual Studio, Apple Xcode, Qt Creator, Amazon AWS dashboard, etc.
If the above were all reduced to text-based materials, you'd end up with a bunch of static screen shots which misses the movement of the mouse and the button clicks that showed how the IDE changed from one state to the next.
On the other hand... if you're primarily learning the syntax of a language or studying the Big-O properties of an algorithm, you don't need a talking head on a video to explain it. It's more efficient to just read the text.
[+] [-] omk|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] crispyambulance|5 years ago|reply
Basically, search youtube for some specific topic (eg "MediatR" b/c I'm working in .NET)
Using the relevant results, create a playlist and order it with the shortest videos first, or in numerical order if some are part of a series.
Then, start watching the video's. You'll get some garbage, some useful insights, and some really solid advice. Stop when you've had enough and you're at least in a better place to get on with your own work in that particular topic.
Good youtube videos give you the benefit of some context and opinion around the topic. You can't get that with documentation because it typically takes too much of a "reference" approach that isn't helpful if you're just starting but need to get something done.
Stackoverflow works if you got a specific question and can navigate past the smug a-holes, but it also eschews context and advice though in a different way than reference documentation.
Of course, the best thing you can do is to have a kind mentor that will patiently answer your questions, or better, ask YOU questions to guide your learning. Sadly, that's not always possible.
[+] [-] thebeefytaco|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sixQuarks|5 years ago|reply
Codingtrain youtube has some decent series, but I like buying courses on Udemy. They’re usually like $10 since there are always promotions.
[+] [-] colesantiago|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yuanshan|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] VikingCoder|5 years ago|reply
It's terrifying to watch.
And the guy had no idea that's not how people do it. He saw me fiddling with a new language, and was baffled with what I was doing.
[+] [-] krapp|5 years ago|reply
Game Design and Design Criticism:
Design Doc https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNOVwMpD-5A1xzcQGbIHNeA
TB Skyen https://www.youtube.com/user/TBSkyen
Game Development
HeartBeast https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrHQNOyU1q6BFEfkNq2CYMA
Brackeys https://www.youtube.com/user/Brackeys
Sebastian Lague https://www.youtube.com/user/Cercopithecan
GDQuest https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxboW7x0jZqFdvMdCFKTMsQ
Javidx9 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-yuWVUplUJZvieEligKBkA
[+] [-] semicolonandson|5 years ago|reply
Basically my story is that is that I solo-bootstrapped a web-app and have lived from it independently for over a decade. Because of these circumstances I face no red tape in showing the code, the analytics, or the online advertising campaigns I use on screen, and this makes for a more concrete, example-filled treatment of the full gamut of what goes into running a web-based software business.
So if you're an indie-hacker or software founder that does (or at least _should_ be doing) online marketing, I think you'll get something out of my story:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOE_sQTyQOo
[+] [-] x87678r|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vulcan01|5 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/user/eaterbc
[+] [-] andreygrehov|5 years ago|reply
Dynamic Programming for Beginners: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVrpF4r7WIhTT1hJqZmjP...
[+] [-] procd|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kratom_sandwich|5 years ago|reply
https://old.reddit.com/r/learnprogramming/comments/iz064h/li...
[+] [-] Swizec|5 years ago|reply
Most videos, courses, and articles you find don’t teach you much. They’re a recipe for you to follow. Do this then that then this.
If you’re building exactly what the author is building, great! You’ve built it.
Then comes a new problem. Or an interview question. It’s actually the same thing you just built, but you don’t have the understanding to realize that. So you look for a completely new tutorial to follow.
This is a losing proposition. You’re learning a lot of recipes by rote and not understanding much. With months or years of pain, you’ll start to pick up patterns by induction.
Not a great way to learn.
It’s like learning to cook an italian risotto and then being flumoxxed by veggie rice. Even though they’re the same thing.
Now here’s where it gets worse: It seems the market (or at least google searches) wants these rote recipes. It’s what gets you the most traffic.
I don’t know that there’s a solution. It’s probably the same problem as crash diets and everyone asking for the best font to use on a VC pitch deck.
[+] [-] asadawadia|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] probotect0r|5 years ago|reply
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvBT4XBdoUE&t=1s
[+] [-] KIFulgore|5 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/c/javidx9/
[+] [-] thrownaway954|5 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFbNIlppjAuEX4znoulh0Cw
the dude knows his stuff and explains everything like your 5 years old which is _exactly_ what i want when viewing a tutorial site.
as an example... his flexbox video is awesome
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYq5PXgSsbE
[+] [-] chrisgd|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hswolff|5 years ago|reply