I've done some video walk-throughs and am preparing some new ones, but there's a doubt I still have:
Should I code while recording or have the code prepared beforehand and go through it?
On one hand I think it's cool to see the coding process, but that makes the videos longer and may make them boring.
What do you think?
Top comments (6)
I've been watching some Docker tutorials over the past week or so. I've liked both of them. The live coding ones showed me that some of the things I ran into are the same ones that other people encounter as well (like problems switching from Linux to Windows containers). On the other hand, a well produced and edited demo of a technique makes ideas more clear and concise, especially when accompanied by good, working, code examples.
Yes, well produced and edited videos are probably the best, but require a lot of extra post processing work. I'll probably skip that option for now, maybe when I want to improve my video editing skills I take into account.
It really depends of your schedule and experience.
Live videos usually go up to 4 hours. Fitting 4 hours in a workday without damaging your family/social/work life can be a pain.
Nevertheless, it's more rewarding since you can see the struggles and the approaches to solve a real problem. If it has a live chat, even better, because more people will throw in their solutions.
With an edited video, sometimes those problems are not even addressed.
I started to realize this, while watching the Coding Train on YouTube. Link below.
youtube.com/user/shiffman
Yeah, 4 hour video sessions are not in my near future 🙂
I'm not going with streaming (at least for now), but rather uploading a stream like recording, which allows me to do the necessary breaks.
But I guess the key takeaway is that you find it valuable the see the process, and not just the thing done, good to know! 👍
Hey João,
I like to see "real" work, especially solving errors and other daily challenges. Therefore I only watch & create live coding sessions.
Yeah, I agree, seeing the project being built "live" seems more interesting.
I only worry people may find the longer videos boring, as particularly in the initial steps of a project there are a lot of little things one needs to do that may not be the most interesting - or maybe I'm wrong, could not be interesting to someone who already knows it, but important to someone learning it.