Is live coding fun?

#programming #live #discuss

Do you think Live Coding is fun? If not... what do you think it will make it fun? 😊

I’ve seen gamers streaming and having thousands and thousands of viewers. Why can’t we (as programmers) have that? 🤔

This question is bugging me for a while now and I want to find a solution.

As a streamer myself I’d like to have more people who are engaged with the content that I’m producing and at the end have more fun AND learn more.

Top comments (16)

GazijaW • Jun 14 '20

There is literally LiveCoders team on Twitch which have 100+ streamers who do often coding streams. My fav is CodingGarden (Javascript) but you can find something for any coding language possible

Florin Pop • Jun 14 '20

Yup. I know them. CJ is very fun to watch indeed. ☺️

Bernard Baker • Jun 14 '20

Live coding is awesome. The way you think when you are live coding is different from the way you code when when you are alone.

I recall pairing with a developer and working through their code making changes. My programming was better because I knew they were was watching me help them.

Florin Pop • Jun 15 '20

It is indeed awesome! People seem to enjoy it. I was just trying to find ways to have more people enjoy and learn from my streams.

Vuelancer • Jun 13 '20

Hi Florin pop, I'm of your subscriber in both youtube and twitch! and dev.to also😂

Live coding & Stream needs fast working brain and multitasking mind 😜😜❗

I'm also having a youtube channel called Vuelancer If you see that channel, I will feel more happier than now replying to you!

gorlok 🧉 • Jun 15 '20

Coding can be boring. Live coding needs some charisma. It must be interesting. It must be fun, entertaining, useful and/or educational. There are no recipes. It can be mastered. Some coders has it, and others don't.

Chris Hale • Jun 15 '20

I think this tool seems very cool for a "live coding with a performance" sort of thing: sonic-pi.net/
Went through the tutorials and it is quite fun to code up music, especially faster than I expected to be able to. Not that I would do this live, but it is fun.

Fabrícia Diniz • Jun 15 '20

It is so much fun. To my experience, community is everything. More people gather around a community than around a single person, so knowing people that also do it and creating a community is one of the most important things to make it even more fun.

Aisha Blake • Jun 15 '20 • Edited

Whether it's fun to do or to watch depends largely on the streamer in my opinion. I enjoy live coding but started my career as a JavaScript instructor. I feel like I've done more coding in front of people than in private!

I've never seen you stream, so I don't know what sort of format you use. Personally, I don't enjoy watching people do their regular work unless they're also able to keep up an interesting conversation. It helps if each stream has a particular goal. I'm more interested in watching a lesson on a particular topic. When I stream code, it's generally an extra lesson for my students or a small, specific project.

I also feel that gaming is more approachable/relatable. Most people have played a video game in some form but many still see coding as some mysterious thing. I don't think we'll see people flock to coding streams in the same way until that changes.