Asthe world’s most popular livestreaming site—and a multibillion dollar Amazon property — Twitch is hardly new. But in recent years the web giant, which rocketed to success showing gamers at play, has started to branch out. As livestreaming setups have become cheaper and watching the web has continued to displace television time, many more types of streamers have joined the party. Today, Twitch has amateur musicians, home cooks, stream-of-life vloggers, and even ad hoc groups of people trying to help each other learn foreign languages. And now, you can also watch programmers programming.

At first glance, programming seems like a poor fit for livestreaming. The problem isn’t the long hours spent staring into a computer monitor — after all, that’s no different from Fortnite, which sucks up roughly 4 million hours of daily watch time on Twitch. The problem is that the average programming session is 10% meat and 90% filler. Moments of focused typing are broken up with reading Stack Overflow, staring blankly at the screen, fruitless Google searches, and contemplating broken builds. (And let’s not forget compiling.)

If it sounds awkward — well, sometimes it is. But the surprise is that clever streamers have found ways to make programming streams work. Consider long-time streamer handmade_hero (Casey Muratori), who runs a stream on weekends detailing the painstaking creation of a single game. Like many coding streams, Muratori is a professional programmer working on a passion project in his spare time. His stream has the essentials — a minimum two-camera view (large screen view, smaller face cam), a stream-of-coder-consciousness chat, and some seriously crunchy code. The project — now past its 600th session — is meant to serve as a de facto class on game design. It works because Muratori is constantly articulating what he’s doing, whether it’s spotting small problems or thinking through overarching design decisions. And what makes his stream unique is the fact that all his work is online — if the camera isn’t on, he isn’t working on the project.

Twitch isn’t the most intuitive destination for instructional content. Watching someone work is slow. On Twitch, the content is in real time, so you can’t jump to a specific point or speed up the video like you might on YouTube. There’s plenty of filler. And although the work might be structured, you’re there to glean what you can from whatever comes your way, because there’s no formal tutorial structure. But the people watching Muratori aren’t looking for a paint-by-number coding lesson, or a presentation that’s been edited to perfection. Instead, they want to see how a programmer solves a problem in real life, with all the circuitous routes, doubling back, and dead ends that entails.

If it sounds awkward — well, sometimes it is.

Coding streams aren’t just about the act of programming — they also give viewers a fly-on-the-wall look at life in software development. Stop by popular streamer noopkat (Suz Hinton) and you’ll see her dealing with the usual noncoding work that’s involved with managing small open source projects, like handling pull requests. It’s a valuable insight for junior developers who might know the theory but lack the confidence to dive in.Now Is the Time to Teach Your Kids to CodeSpend a weekend — or a monthlong at-home break — giving your kids a taste of programmingonezero.medium.com

Contrary to what you might expect, coding streams aren’t just for coders. They’re also frequented by civilians who are curious to see what programmers actually do all day. Compared to a keynote talk, a livestream has no filter. That makes them fascinating, particularly for Twitch audiences that skew young and tech-savvy — exactly the sort of people who might be curious about professional coding and likely to consider a career in the field.

Just like in other Twitch communities, the hook here is community. Each livestream has its own chat, and the most popular Twitch channels have high-energy, emoticon-soaked discussions that rival a teen Snapchat. In programming streams, chat lets viewers ask questions or make observations, and the most successful coder streamers are always interacting with their audience. On Hinton’s stream, every session begins with an informal talk with her followers. Like most successful Twitch streamers, Hinton has strict rules against chat harassment and hate speech, deftly expanded to include programming language bigotry (“Absolutely no language or tool bashing”).

Currently, livestream coding is an open secret — a flourishing subculture that’s easily overlooked.

Some streams run more like a radio call-in show. Visit csharpfritz (Microsoft PM, Jeff Fritz) and you’ll see the same details that are in many of the most popular game streams. There’s a pre-stream waiting room with peppy music, constant shoutouts to new subscribers, and plenty of sound effects. You’ll still see coding — mostly on sample projects, because Fritz plays a developer advocate role in introducing Microsoft technologies — but it’s mixed with news and interviews with software professionals. For programmers who might be used to working alone, Fritz’s coding show is a blast of fresh air, and a chance to rub shoulders with other like-minded coders. More than a few watchers come for the code, but stay for the chat.

Currently, livestream coding is an open secret — a flourishing subculture that’s easily overlooked. At any given moment, there are at least a dozen coders streaming, and there are hundreds of active streamers cataloged in Twitch’s Science & Technology category. If you’re interested in checking out a few, there’s no better place to start than the curated list at belly.io, a labor of love by software engineers (and cooking enthusiasts) Allison and Son. There’s also the Twitch group The Live Coders, which includes over a hundred of Twitch’s top coding livestreamers and hosts its own virtual conference.

And if you’re a seasoned programmer yourself, nothing sharpens your skills more than working in front of a live audience. The challenge is surrendering the compulsion to be perfect and letting your guard down in front of the world. If you’re thinking of going down that brave road, Hinton has an excellent overview on her setup.

Source: medium