Am I the only who loathe the current trend of posting things before they are finished?
I am all for the lean approach, but this isn't a minimum viable product (that would be a player and a tagging system to find the language I was interested in) it is a website.
I don't typically mind too much, but this post is misleading. The headline specifically made this sound like it was a working project, not just a photoshopped screenshot.
Bait-and-switch is just as bad a form of linkbait as any other.
If it was common on other sites I would be a little annoyed but I think HN is the perfect place for a technique like this since most readers are happy to discuss projects in the idea phase. I for one like having the opportunity to throw in my thoughts at an early stage.
I am relatively new to HN so I've just come to accept it, I would prefer that products were finished, but it's not too big of a deal. Plus, it might give the creators feedback suggesting they shouldn't pursue a project or maybe even that they should invest more time and resources in a project. Either way, we would all benefit from creators being more strategic in their projects.
If the market is not there, then I would hope smart people would spend their time doing something else.
Unfortunately MVP is one of those terms like "pivot" that got out of control. An MVP is "the minimum viable product is that version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort."
Set up the same thing for watching people design. I don't design much, but I love and learn incredible amounts from watching people design. Could be any format -- web, print, architectural, etc.
Design is inherently more visual, so watching others communicates more and is probably more fun and engaging.
Also I suspect more people design than code so you probably get a bigger audience getting more from it.
This is a brilliant suggestion. I've seen countless posts here on "how should I learn design?". When I think about learning to design, I want to learn the process of a good designer, not just theory or tricks. For example, I learnt a lot more design from this post and video than other stuff:
Good idea. As part of the recording stream, it would be nice if the mouse clicks and keypresses were somehow documented (and maybe presented in sync with the video as an overlay or beneath the video?) which would allow the viewer to figure out exactly what the person did and how they did it.
Well, there's already http://showMeDo.com which is really great. Covers lots of programming and related functions like using IDEs like Eclipse and editors like Vim. There's also tutorial episodes on design like suggested by a commenter before. No Photoshop or the rest of the Adobe CS suite however, all F/LOSS like GIMP and Inkscape. I'm actually practicing by learning from Eric Florenzo's playlist on Django here[1]. The only problem with ShowMeDo is that lots of the material is dated (and that's not necessarily a problem always!) and there isn't much new content. The site was busy 07-09 but unfortunately seems to have been forgotten.
I hope castingcode.tv doesn't fall to this problem, as this is a really great and useful way to learn lots of computer skills.
There's the commercial solution by PeepCode[2] with excellent quality pieces by the crew there. The material there is much more up to date and consistent in quality standards. It's not as huge an offering, but it's certainly a lot. I'd also definitely recommend them to anyone who enjoys this style of learning.
The last and probably most accessible solution out there right now are the Youtube playlists and video series in this format. The quality there is a little hit and run, with some series excellent and others so-so. The target audience is almost always for the beginner, but that shouldn't dissuade those more advanced from perusing a vim tut to brush up on new tricks.
I hate video tutorials. They're far too slow compared to just reading something.
Watching someone code is different, though. It's not prepared in advance, it doesn't have them trying to be a braggart and show you some clever thing they know, and you actually get to see their process as they go from idea to software.
For some reason I've never seen ShowMeDo but what a great site. Thanks for sharing this. As the "business" guy I keep learning about new technologies and taught myself to program using various books and sites.
Haha, funny coincidence; because of this and also because I just wanted to try out, I recorded my working sessions of the last days and uploaded them to Youtube.
I guess most of it is pretty boring but I cannot really tell Maybe also because the first two are without sound; the last one is with system audio mostly playing music (and thus blocked in Germany :)); another one will be uploaded soon will be with audio from my mic but I am not really saying that much.
I, for myself, really like watching other people coding.
(1) do you really want to do it live? Why not do it the youtube way? Store the videos, rate them, comment with videos, etc.
(2) you could instead of making true videos split it into 2 parts. Making a video, and attach a text area to it so users can copy/paste your code. One could see the changes live.
(3) I guess this works hard if you want to present an SDK. Maybe you could turn the editable fields into text areas? At least the main one. Kind of a layer over the video.
I signed up for the email, but I hope most people will just code and give a few comments, rather than trying to explain every single thing they are doing. It just makes it boring. Code as fast as you can, and keep the comments to a minimum.
Watching Notch was amazing. He did it perfectly. There were times during the first few hours that I fast forwarded, but only when he was experimenting. And it was never for long.
It would be awesome if you could also somehow download a VM that you could run that would match the environment and then replay the coding session, pausing it to poke around when needed.
Am I the only one who thinks this might be incredibly boring? Seriously, over the course of say, a 10 hour coding day, how many inspired, exciting, or even interesting moments are there? That is alot of 'dead air'... This feels like an Onion satire on the popularization of 'geek'
You've got to think outside of the box a bit. They could use this for remote interviews that entail live problem solving. It could really help cut down the number of candidates that require in-person interviews if they live in another state.
I think we'll end up with some planned and edited screencasts, and some "live coding" streams that are great (with 95% of the live streams being dull.) So there would probably need to be some kind of reputation system or way to look for coders who happen to be interesting in this format.
The point isn't to sit and watch a 10-hour coding session. Even if such lengthy things are available, I imagine the most benefit would come from just watching a random 5 minutes of a bunch of different people's styles and learning from their basic approaches.
Great idea! When I watched that livestreaming from Notch, I thought about this and I almost bought the domain name http://watchmecode.net. I am curious to see how well this is going to be executed!
I watched a little bit of Notch's thing, it was fun. And for a more in depth topic, it could certainly be a great way to learn.
On the other hand I've come across 1-2 minute YouTube videos several times when googling how to use some specific API call, and I find it aggravating when all I really need is one little code snippet. I know how to type or copy 'n paste. I don't need to watch someone else do it. All I want most of the time is a well commented, nicely highlighted, code view on someone's blog (StackOverflow and github are just fine too!)
I can definitely see this as more of a 'watch me code something cool' idea rather than wanting to learn how to solve a specific problem. A lot of the benefit of being able to watch the streams is to see people get their questions answered during the cast, that relate to what the caster was broadcasting at the time.
I read the headline and was like "score, I want me some of that pie" and clicked on the link only to discover they aren't ready to launch yet.
Really excited though, hope it takes off for them. I think it would be a great way of not only learning to program better/differently but also to expose yourself to different programming styles.
Time lapse could be a way of getting an overview of the session, and then 'zooming' into the bit you're interested in, like when you say 'wait! how did you do that!'. Perhaps this could be implemented as a scalable timeline scrollbar.
The timeline could include comments like Soundcloud so people can ask and answer how to do something when and where they see it.
The stream should include keystrokes and mouse gestures as well as video. There should also be links to things like dotfiles on github.
If the recording/uploading process can snapshot the process tree of the window it is recording, this could be used to automatically tag the video (e.g. vim editing Clojure code on Windows, Illustrator on Mac), which would be nice for subscribing to feeds of tags.
An interesting point of reflection this poses to developers is 'am I doing something that other people would care to watch?'.
I like the motivational factors a site like this poses, challenges you to become an expert at something, and when you are coding live, forces you to stay focused on the task at hand. Looking forward to the launch.
Interesting detail: I saw this link in an email I got very recently about VimConf. At the bottom it says "Copyright 30 Cubits LLC"—the contact email at 30 Cubits' page[1] is for Joey, I'd assume it's the same Joey as the guy behind VimConf. Man's on a roll!
Actually, I assumed that VimConf was a great marketing strategy for castingcode.tv - am I wrong to think that the product came first and then the conference idea?
I second this idea, however I think it would be better to rotate through the comments as they reach points in the video rather than have a cluster of icons on a timeline that you have to hover to read the comment.
I really do like this idea, not because it does anything new (as other's have mentioned it's easy to do this on plenty of existing venues like youtube), it's more to do with the community you could build around this. If you could find a simple way to match users with coding sessions that are relevant to them, you'll have no problem building a community. You absolutely must allow videos to be stored (not just watched live), indexed, commented on, rated, tagged, etc if you want to make this useful, imho.
If I could go to site, search for "best way to write a y combinator in c++" or something similar and get videos showing people doing just that but sorted by user rating, I would be a happy boy! I love when other users do the hard work of telling me what's good and what isn't. :)
As a researcher who studies how software gets produced this is a potential goldmine. This has the ability to offer significant insight in to how programmers work in their native environment.
I was just wishing for this. Sign me up! I hope this becomes a reality. I'd love to stream while I work. I just need to figure out a way to keep things like our api and secret keys private.
I agree, there has to be a feature so that when a particular sequence of characters gets entered, the screen blurs it out. But even then, it would take many other people using it, and the functionality working, for me to trust it.
[+] [-] tomjen3|14 years ago|reply
I am all for the lean approach, but this isn't a minimum viable product (that would be a player and a tagging system to find the language I was interested in) it is a website.
[+] [-] jpadvo|14 years ago|reply
Bait-and-switch is just as bad a form of linkbait as any other.
[+] [-] richcollins|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jasonkostempski|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tryitnow|14 years ago|reply
If the market is not there, then I would hope smart people would spend their time doing something else.
[+] [-] rhygar|14 years ago|reply
http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2009/08/minimum-viable-...
This is a great example of an MVP. If nobody signs up, he knows there is no demand for this product.
[+] [-] spodek|14 years ago|reply
Set up the same thing for watching people design. I don't design much, but I love and learn incredible amounts from watching people design. Could be any format -- web, print, architectural, etc.
Design is inherently more visual, so watching others communicates more and is probably more fun and engaging.
Also I suspect more people design than code so you probably get a bigger audience getting more from it.
[+] [-] revorad|14 years ago|reply
http://paulstamatiou.com/startup-web-design-ux-crash-course
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYEQpwduyPU
[+] [-] ed209|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yarone|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Amokrane|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] genieyclo|14 years ago|reply
I hope castingcode.tv doesn't fall to this problem, as this is a really great and useful way to learn lots of computer skills.
There's the commercial solution by PeepCode[2] with excellent quality pieces by the crew there. The material there is much more up to date and consistent in quality standards. It's not as huge an offering, but it's certainly a lot. I'd also definitely recommend them to anyone who enjoys this style of learning.
The last and probably most accessible solution out there right now are the Youtube playlists and video series in this format. The quality there is a little hit and run, with some series excellent and others so-so. The target audience is almost always for the beginner, but that shouldn't dissuade those more advanced from perusing a vim tut to brush up on new tricks.
[1] http://showmedo.com/videotutorials/video?name=3360000&fr...
[2] http://peepcode.com/
[+] [-] wccrawford|14 years ago|reply
Watching someone code is different, though. It's not prepared in advance, it doesn't have them trying to be a braggart and show you some clever thing they know, and you actually get to see their process as they go from idea to software.
[+] [-] gstamp|14 years ago|reply
[1] https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/screencasts
[+] [-] inovica|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] albertzeyer|14 years ago|reply
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5w8z9ryoulE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-4jpbcHHD0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12D6S25aY8o
I guess most of it is pretty boring but I cannot really tell Maybe also because the first two are without sound; the last one is with system audio mostly playing music (and thus blocked in Germany :)); another one will be uploaded soon will be with audio from my mic but I am not really saying that much.
I, for myself, really like watching other people coding.
Btw., I was working on https://github.com/albertz/ChromeWebApps. :)
[+] [-] zupa|14 years ago|reply
(1) do you really want to do it live? Why not do it the youtube way? Store the videos, rate them, comment with videos, etc.
(2) you could instead of making true videos split it into 2 parts. Making a video, and attach a text area to it so users can copy/paste your code. One could see the changes live.
(3) I guess this works hard if you want to present an SDK. Maybe you could turn the editable fields into text areas? At least the main one. Kind of a layer over the video.
[+] [-] wccrawford|14 years ago|reply
Watching Notch was amazing. He did it perfectly. There were times during the first few hours that I fast forwarded, but only when he was experimenting. And it was never for long.
[+] [-] richcollins|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] localhost3000|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jqueryin|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lizzard|14 years ago|reply
There are some really good screencasts out there -- I watched some of Kent Beck's Test Driven Development videos and learned way more than I did from the book. (http://pragprog.com/screencasts/v-kbtdd/test-driven-developm...)
[+] [-] rubergly|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Amokrane|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Ogre|14 years ago|reply
On the other hand I've come across 1-2 minute YouTube videos several times when googling how to use some specific API call, and I find it aggravating when all I really need is one little code snippet. I know how to type or copy 'n paste. I don't need to watch someone else do it. All I want most of the time is a well commented, nicely highlighted, code view on someone's blog (StackOverflow and github are just fine too!)
Maybe I'm just old or old fashioned.
[+] [-] bobbles|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JTxt|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] click170|14 years ago|reply
I read the headline and was like "score, I want me some of that pie" and clicked on the link only to discover they aren't ready to launch yet.
Really excited though, hope it takes off for them. I think it would be a great way of not only learning to program better/differently but also to expose yourself to different programming styles.
[+] [-] vdm|14 years ago|reply
Here's a 8h-1m time lapse of somebody implementing Snake3D in Clojure. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHARNkMi5Lg
Time lapse could be a way of getting an overview of the session, and then 'zooming' into the bit you're interested in, like when you say 'wait! how did you do that!'. Perhaps this could be implemented as a scalable timeline scrollbar.
The timeline could include comments like Soundcloud so people can ask and answer how to do something when and where they see it.
The stream should include keystrokes and mouse gestures as well as video. There should also be links to things like dotfiles on github.
If the recording/uploading process can snapshot the process tree of the window it is recording, this could be used to automatically tag the video (e.g. vim editing Clojure code on Windows, Illustrator on Mac), which would be nice for subscribing to feeds of tags.
[+] [-] rodh257|14 years ago|reply
I like the motivational factors a site like this poses, challenges you to become an expert at something, and when you are coding live, forces you to stay focused on the task at hand. Looking forward to the launch.
[+] [-] beaumartinez|14 years ago|reply
[1] http://30cubits.com/
[+] [-] swaroop|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BasDirks|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CesareBorgia|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jwarzech|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brittonrt|14 years ago|reply
If I could go to site, search for "best way to write a y combinator in c++" or something similar and get videos showing people doing just that but sorted by user rating, I would be a happy boy! I love when other users do the hard work of telling me what's good and what isn't. :)
[+] [-] gospelwut|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] quinndupont|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amccloud|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] derrida|14 years ago|reply