HN Gopher Feed (2017-07-07) - page 1 of 10 ___________________________________________________________________
Lessons from my first year of live coding on Twitch
75 points by ingve
https://medium.com/@suzhinton/lessons-from-my-first-year-of-live...___________________________________________________________________
rmccoy6435 - 1 hours ago
I have live streamed some stuff before when coding, and I must say
most of the people who come into a channel doing coding are really
nice people who ask really insightful question, or offer good
solutions. It's like Mob Programming with the internet (or as the
author here says an "MMOPP"), and it also makes me a better
programmer because before I even think about writing any code I'm
thinking about how it will be perceived by someone else peering
over my shoulder (akin to the pro arguments for TDD).
nightcracker - 1 hours ago
If you are programming, especially in a live studio environment,
you should really invest into multiple monitors.
elif - 1 hours ago
if you're trying to present to viewers, two monitors will make
keeping them focused into a ridiculous chore.That is like telling
a speaker to prepare two slide decks and switch between them
during the talk.
minimaxir - 5 minutes ago
Using a second monitor for live streaming is more useful for
things useful to the streamer but which do not need to be shown
on screen to readers (e.g. frantic Stack Overflow research when
the code breaks, or analytics as the article mentions).
oneeyedpigeon - 17 minutes ago
I don't know much about streaming, but having watched lots of
twitch channels, I think some streamers use one screen for
stream display, and the other for everything they want to see
but don't want the viewers to see e.g. chat, sensitive stuff,
etc.
ue_ - 12 minutes ago
That's exactly what I do when streaming Overwatch, especially
when my friend talks to me via IRC and I reply with voice.
That said my monitor is big enough to have both the game and
IRC visible, and I could set OBS just to record the game.
ekimekim - 1 hours ago
The author mentioned several times that they tried a second
monitor, and it just wasn't their thing. And that's ok.Everyone
has different preferences and something that works great for you
(and me - I have a 4-monitor setup right now and loving it) isn't
necessarily what works great for everyone.
Kiro - 1 hours ago
I want to do this but I'm afraid of two things:1. Show how horrible
my code is.2. Accidentally leaking sensitive stuff.
avitzurel - 1 hours ago
1. Stop 2. Just use a part of your screen that is off the
recording. Never open `.` files on the stream. Never login on the
screen, always off of the screen. If you are showing AWS cli
console stuff, make sure you hide the public IPs and public DNS
of things.
Kiro - 47 minutes ago
2 is related to 1 - there are credentials hard coded all over
the place.
avitzurel - 35 minutes ago
so stream another project.As a habit, I don't stream code
related to my workplace, it has too many risks. Even if you
see parts and pieces and will not be able to make sense of
it.We don't have a single secret embedded in code and all of
our secret files are encrypted using vault, even that is too
risky for the clients we have.I stream my personal projects
and things like QnA etc...
avitzurel - 1 hours ago
I started streaming a few months back and I absolutely love it.Some
solid tips on here and OBS is a surprisingly good piece of software
but it can be a resource hog at times.The hardest thing about it is
to keep the schedule and be emotionally available when the stream
comes on. I wrote about it here [1].What I like the most is working
through a project in stages on the stream. People can connect with
the project and also contribute to it. Working on one-offs tutorial
style did not really work for me.I stream full stack content. From
Node.js to Golang and even Devops. [2]The screen to not show the
desktop when doing secret things is good, however, as mentioned
here I would definitely recommend a second screen. It changes the
way you work a lot.[1] https://fullstack.network/announcing-my-
most-ambitious-strea...[2] https://www.twitch.tv/kensodev
eropple - 1 hours ago
> Some solid tips on here and OBS is a surprisingly good piece of
software but it can be a resource hog at times."Hog" implies
bloat to me? Video's hard work, though, and OBS will chew a CPU
but it really needs to (unless you use a GPU encoding solution
like NVENC, but there are quality concerns there). I have a
second PC--actually a pretty nice 4U rackmount in a 6U wheelie
with my audio interface--dedicated to video crunching and audio
mixing for when I do livestreaming events for folks.
avitzurel - 45 minutes ago
I use a 2017 iMac 5K with 32G memory and quad core and OBS is
absolutely a lightweight for this one.Before, I was using a
2015 MBP and it was having a VERY hard time handling the
streaming at 1080P (mind you I was running 2 screens off of
it).I am not sure it's a hog because of bloat, it's just that
you need a more than average computer to stream with good
quality.Funny story is that once I clicked stop on the stream
and it kept streaming. Showing me having a phone call, going on
Facebook and just continuing with my day. I had to just shut
down my computer because OBS would just not stop.On the new
iMac I had absolutely zero issues with it and I am running it
with 2 screens and 5K on the main screen.
eropple - 37 minutes ago
Fair enough. I also run an NDI sync, a browser overlay, and a
bunch of cameras, which probably adds to the load.
lgas - 37 minutes ago
I think the implication with Hog is just that it's greedy and
will consume as much resources as you give it.
eropple - 27 minutes ago
It doesn't do that, though--OBS uses pretty well-understood
levels of memory, compute, etc. that scale directly to what
you're doing.
jzelinskie - 30 minutes ago
I've streamed myself programming on Twitch, and can echo some
additional knowledge in addition to what's shared in the
article:Don't expect anyone from Twitch to randomly discover your
stream and have any idea what you're doing. Programming anything
that isn't a video game on Twitch will be totally unfamiliar to
their primary demographics. That said, use Twitter or something
else to BRING YOUR OWN AUDIENCE. Be prepared to stream for a few
hours or else you will likely never build up traction in your
chat.As this post says, vocalizing your stream of consciousness is
vital; think of it like pair programming with the chat. I try to
engage the chat without getting totally nerd sniped and ending up
off topic.I think the best way to really kick the tires on Twitch
programming content off would be to stream podcasts and/or have a
joint channel of shared programming content and have many different
programmers participating either via a shared account or Twitch
Teams[0].[0]: https://twitchtips.com/twitch-teams/
gallerdude - 25 minutes ago
I'm really inarticulate, so my biggest fear would be people not
able to understand what I'm saying...
jonlawlor - 1 minutes ago
Then live coding might be a way to improve that skill and get
over your fear! Nothing feels quite like facing a fear head on.
ioddly - 1 hours ago
This is an interesting topic to me, as I'm giving a talk with some
coding in two weeks and a major concern of mine has been making
sure that what I'm doing is interesting and more importantly
followable. Normal coding for me just is a flurry of vim
activity.Questions for anyone who does this or views these sorts of
streams:Do you find that people can follow what's happening in vim
well enough? I've considered just using plain VSCode because I'm
concerned jumping around too much as I do normally might be hard to
follow.Do you feel that this might be good interview practice as
well, since the process of explaining code as we write it doesn't
come naturally to some of us?Any additional tips to make sure what
I'm doing is comprehensible would be appreciated.
avitzurel - 1 hours ago
Talk!Just talk your mouth off, seriously. It's the best tip I can
give you to make it interactive.You gonna open a file and do
something, say it, don't just do it. When you are thinking of a
problem, ask for suggestions from the crowd/viewers...Also,
ProTip. Vim is a problem if you navigate really quickly along
splits (like you should), people lose focus and will just stop
following.I switched to Atom for my last stream (I hate every
minute of it) but it slows me down enough so people can follow
better.Hope this helps
StavrosK - 20 minutes ago
Huh, that's very good advice. I would never have thought about
slowing myself down, but now that you mentioned it, it makes
perfect sense.
dsjoerg - 1 hours ago
Thanks for this ? I've been thinking about doing the same thing and
this is super helpful.