Hello DEVs,

Today I tried out live-streaming my coding session on Twitch!

I'm actually not a stranger to streaming my code. My weekend job is to teach youths games programming and since we moved to online due to Covid-19, I've basically been live streaming my code.

However, the biggest difference is that I have lesson plans and preparation code done for my class beforehand, whereas live streaming on Twitch was more figure-it-out-along-the-way kind of deal.

This brings about 2 big challenges:

1. Viewers can pop in and out of the stream, which makes it hard for them to catch up on things they missed
2. I can't assume everyone is on the same skill level and require more or less explanation for what I'm doing

So how can I overcome these issues?

I don't have a definitive answer but I do have some ideas.

For the first problem, it helps if the project is open source as the viewers can go browse the code themselves. However, people come to streams to relax and maybe your changes aren't pushed yet so it would be nice to have some folder structure or architectural diagram up at all times.

As for changing up the level of skill? I think the only way is to assume everyone is a beginner and explain everything all the time. I don't think I did so this first stream but I am looking to improve my explanation skills.

Do you have any suggestions or ideas for consuming programming content? Let me know!

If you're interested in watching me live stream coding, I am streaming my development of a Java-based brick breaker clone on Twitch, 3:00 PM - 5:00 PM PST!

Socials

Twitch
Twitter
GitHub

Brick Breaker Repo

$ git clone https://github.com/justinhodev/brick-breaker.git
$ ./gradlew check build
# compile to exe if needed or just use the one from GitHub release
# ./gradlew createExe

# build files are in build/distributions/
# setup in build/scriptsShadow/