This post has now been updated for 2020 with more channels for you to explore.
An increasing number of people stream as they code and hundreds of people watch their every stream. You might wonder why. After all, why would you want to watch someone else code? These live streams often last for hours. Isn't it a slow and ineffective way to improve your own programming skills?
You'd be surprised. Watching a live stream of someone programming is a great way to learn something new or to improve an existing skill. There are many benefits to it. Firstly, you'll notice that even experienced programmers struggle. They're no different from you. They have no magic tricks. They google for solutions, just like you do. They forget the semicolon, just like you do. They struggle, just like you do.
Secondly, watching other people code will show you the little tips and tricks they use to speed up or improve their code. These are often things you'd never see in an edited video, but that can be incredibly valuable.
Thirdly, streamers are often very interactive with their audience when they're live. They answer questions, ask questions, and change what they're talking about depending on their audience's wishes.
If you've never watched a live stream before, I recommend you give it a try. Here are 10 live programming channels worth watching:
Fun Fun Function
Mattias Petter Johansson is the creator of Fun Fun Function, one of the most popular programming channels on YouTube. FFF has both: plenty of excellent, edited videos for developers and recordings of live streams that show his struggles as he programs.
Traversy Media
Traversy Media has hundreds of videos and dozens of video series on a variety of programming topics, from basic web development to MongoDB deployment. His videos walk you through whatever he's building from beginning to end without any edited cuts.
Adam Wathan
Adam Wathan is a YouTube live streamer who streams his coding projects from start to finish. This is code streaming pur sang: you'll see Wathan struggle, look up things, and interact with his audience as he goes along, all of which make for very educational videos.
Naysayer88
Naysayer88 is a Twitch programmer with over 18,000 followers. His live streams almost always have hundreds of viewers. He has videos on compiler programming and game engine programming, as well as more relaxed gaming streams.
csharpfritz
For those of you into .NET code, csharpfritz is the Twitch channel for you. You can watch his live streams on Twitch or, if you missed the live stream, watch the recording of it on his YouTube channel.
Shirley Wu
Shirley Wu is a freelance software engineer who streams about data visualization, JavaScript, and React. She has over 1,600 followers on Twitch, where she streams every Sunday around 11 AM PST. If you miss it, you can find her recorded streams on her YouTube channel.
RadicalFishGames
Radical Fish Games is a game development studio that streams the development of its game CrossCode, a retro-inspired 2D Action RPG set in the distant future. They stream every Saturday at 8 PM CEST. A great channel for those of you looking to learn more about game development.
Syanoks
Syanoks is a Twitch streamer with 15 years of experience programming C. He streams about C, assembly, shell, Python, and OS programming. He doesn't have a regular streaming schedule, although it's usually outside of office hours CET.
DevChatter
Brendan Enrick is the host of DevChatter and a former Microsoft MVP. He mostly streams about web development, but sometimes about Android and Windows development too. There's a useful countdown timer on his Twitch page that tells you when his next stream is. His Twitch recordings are stored on YouTube.
Ferrisstreamsstuff
Ferris is a Graphcore developer who streams every Thursday 7 PM CEST, usually about Rust, C, C+, emulator development, and more. You can watch his recorded Twitch streams on his YouTube channel.
Those were ten live code streamers on Twitch and YouTube. Of course, there are many more. You can discover many great streamers by browsing through the Science & Technology channel on Twitch. But what about you? Do you watch live programmers? Who are some of your favorite ones?
Latest comments (11)
Thomas you done a stupendous work of listing out These 10 Live Streaming Channels and also refer Webnexs in the list
Thanks for sharing information about live streaming channels. But I like to suggest build your own streaming platform. Here you can get an idea about how to build and what is live streaming. Thank you.
Awesome and handy list Thomas! Thanks for sharing it!
You're welcome Sundar.
Jason Lengstorf has a stream called Learn With Jason that is excellent. He has a lot of high quality content, with a variety of guests, and they go through different technologies and learn things together with the viewers.
Chris Biscardi has an awesome stream as well focused around things he's currently learning. Recently he's been working on color theory and a color tool.
Casey Muratori's handmadehero is an awesome live stream. It's been going on for a while and is about building an entire game from scratch.
I think another one worth mentioning is Brian Lagunas. He does wpf, prism, angular, blazor to babe a few
Coding Garden with CJ is also a good one.
youtube.com/channel/UCLNgu_OupwoeE...
Thanks for this awesome list!
Thanks for sharing this. I've recently started streaming myself and I've been looking for other streams for inspiration. This is really helpful!
I have been watching IAmTimCorey's videos on C#. He is really easy to follow, love his channel. However I don't think he streams.