
Livecoding.tv (YC S15) Is Twitch.tv for Coding - kevin
http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/29/yc-backed-livecoding-tv-is-the-twitch-tv-for-coding/
======
Akkuma
I've done coding through twitch and checked out livecoding.tv before deciding
whether I wanted to stick to twitch or move there, since I do/did game
streaming on twitch. I ran across several concerns about livecoding.tv such as
they don't show you the current viewer count of a stream while listing the
streams, they show only the total views, and they specifically require logging
in to accomplish anything on the site.

I ultimately went with Twitch as Livecoding.tv has a fairly small userbase,
the above negatives from livecoding that haven't changed in months despite the
feedback, my app is gaming related, Twitch offers me bots that can help manage
and improve the experience, and finally it can help grow my viewerbase for
non-coding related streams.

Edit: For proof that they were asked to remove the login requirement months
ago
[http://www.reddit.com/r/WatchPeopleCode/comments/2zmw29/i_am...](http://www.reddit.com/r/WatchPeopleCode/comments/2zmw29/i_am_jamie_from_livecodingtv_here_to_answer_your/cpkuup9)

~~~
jamiegreen
Hey - sorry we have not addressed your feedback, its crap and we should be
doing better :/ All I can say is we are a small team doing the best we can,
and we have had some growing pains. However, that is really no excuse so I am
sorry about that.

Yes we do have a relatively small userbase relative to Twitch, but I guess the
reason you would want to come to our site is that our community is focussed on
coding, not just entertainment.

Edit: you should be able to watch streams without logging in now.

~~~
Akkuma
I just want to clarify that wasn't me who originally made that request. I ran
across it while reading up on livecoding.tv awhile back.

You don't see much content not served up on YouTube, unless it is a
subscription or pay per video. There are certainly a ton of coding videos, yet
you don't see a coding centric site. Twitch is already moving toward expanding
into other categories such as programming and game development. The only way I
see livecoding.tv beating Twitch is if one can get more regular viewers due to
the focus on coding and then offer better features around coding, perhaps
things like monetization of past videos and tools to edit them. Perhaps a read
only ide similar to collaborative editors that allows viewers to follow along
with their own font settings, theme, and navigate through the project (I could
expand upon that in a lot more detail). I do wish you guys the best of luck as
I'd like more Twitch alternatives.

I'm also glad to see the login requirement gone and will try it out to see how
many viewers I get without relying upon WatchPeopleCode.

~~~
jamiegreen
The way we hope to differentiate ourselves is by being really focussed on
livestreaming as an educational tool. Definitely there are many features we
would like to develop, but it is still early days yet!

Awesome that you are going to try out Livecoding.tv, hope you enjoy it and let
me know if you have any more questions/feedback!

~~~
michaelchisari
If you could figure out a way for a viewer to live "fork" the code they're
watching, make their own changes, then send a merge request, you might have
something very interesting on your hands.

~~~
jamiegreen
that would be pretty cool!

------
minimaxir
I've been doing research into code live streaming since I might do it sometime
soon. One of the most important things about live streaming is archiving, so
people who aren't online and free _at that exact moment_ can still get value
from the stream. Twitch has VODs, YouTube and Periscope auto-archives.

I attempted to load the archive of the linked Stephen Wolfram video and hit
this: [http://i.imgur.com/m1TEJHS.png](http://i.imgur.com/m1TEJHS.png)

 _Seriously?_

According to the sign-up blurb on the right of the window, forced-signing-in-
to-watch-videos is the intended behavior, which puts a _lot_ of doubt on the
startup sign-up metrics provided. I will never use this service.

~~~
jamiegreen
Hey, Jamie here from Livecoding.tv, sorry you don't like the login to watch
requirement. This is something we will definitely consider removing in the
future. :/

~~~
ablation
It's put me off immediately, unfortunately.

~~~
jamiegreen
You should be able to watch livestreams and videos without logging in now. :)

~~~
meowface
If I'm not mistaken, wasn't there huge criticism of the login requirements
when this was first posted on HN? That was the most vocalized feedback I saw
back then.

Glad to see you guys have realized it's a bad idea though.

~~~
jamiegreen
we try ;) (slow learners!)

------
panic
The tagline is "watch people code products, live". The word "products" appears
in almost every piece of copy on the front page. Why not just "watch people
code, live"? Why the focus on _products_? What about open source code,
personal projects or other things that will never be sold?

Classifying streams by programming language is also kind of odd. Lots of
projects use multiple programming languages. A better classification might be
what general kind of code is being written (machine learning, graphics, UI,
web frontend/backend, games, etc).

That said, I'm very interested in this and hope to see it succeed!

~~~
jamiegreen
Hey, Jamie from Livecoding.tv :) We decided to focus on products in the
beginning as we really wanted to help people succeed in building something
from A-Z, not just learn a portion of it.

That said, we definitely have a broader focus now and have people doing all
sorts of amazing things with code, so thanks for your suggestion!

Classification of streams is also something we are hoping to improve over time
so we really appreciate your feedback!

~~~
zorrb
If the entire point is to watch someone code something from scratch, why is
there no dates on the videos? How can you follow a series from beginning to
end if you have to randomly guess which order a series is in?

~~~
jamiegreen
Reply copied from another answer: Hi - frankly the usability around
discovering videos right now is not great, I totally recognise that. I
appreciate your suggestion and we will definitely be finding ways to improve
it, including adding dates

------
RobotCaleb
I had a very poor experience with one of the founders from livecoding while he
was courting me to stream there. I asked for basic information such as whether
a potential viewer requires a login to view a stream (Yes) and whether a
potential viewer requires a login to participate in chat on a stream (Yes) and
he was very abrasive and offputting. When I said I wasn't comfortable
participating due to his attitude he claimed I wouldn't be a good fit for
streaming and derided me for not just creating an account and figuring out the
answers through trial and error.

When asked I suggest people stream on youtube.

~~~
supercoder
Yeah , wasn't this site on HN a couple weeks ago with Wolfram coding ? I
remember it as the 'site that tried to make me sign up to watch a stream.'. So
this story doesn't sound surprising..

------
SeanAnderson
I use Twitch.TV all the time (I have it up right now) and I signed up for
livecoding.tv when I initially heard of it, but backed out before committing
to anything.

My #1 concern is this:

On Twitch.TV I would never watch someone who is completely quiet. Half the
time I have Twitch up as a passive form of entertainment. Similar to a radio
talkshow going on in the background.

When I'm developing software... I don't talk. I might do an odd grumble to
myself every once in a while, but the loudest thing in the room, by far, is my
keyboard.

Are you expecting developers to talk out their thoughts as they type? Are you
expecting people to just stare at a quiet developer's workflow and try to
glean information?

Also, this comic strip comes to mind: [http://www.commitstrip.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015/06/Strip-...](http://www.commitstrip.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015/06/Strip-Conf%C3%A9rence-de-
champion-650-finalenglish.jpg)

TL;DR: Why would I as a developer want to use your service? What do I gain
from it?

~~~
Akkuma
> When I'm developing software... I don't talk. I might do an odd grumble to
> myself every once in a while, but the loudest thing in the room, by far, is
> my keyboard.

I have previous experience streaming and so immediately got myself in a
mindset of talk talk talk. In fact, I stopped working on my project and had an
hour or so conversation with viewer/viewers about JavaScript frameworks and a
bit of a deep dive on React. To be fair, I've always been someone who yells at
the screen while gaming, so extending that kind of behavior of saying what
you're thinking while coding isn't too hard for me.

~~~
fallat
What's your stream? :) I'm trying to "get into" JavaScript again after
abandoning its brokenness. I'm looking to see people's workflow and you seem
like a knowledgeable person.

------
revanx_
"You don't have adobe flash" " please download it"

Yeah sorry no, it's why I don't use twitch and it's why I won't use
livecoding.tv

~~~
aw3c2
You might like
[https://github.com/chrippa/livestreamer](https://github.com/chrippa/livestreamer)

~~~
revanx_
It's great however there is no plugin yet available for livecoding.

~~~
mumphster
[https://github.com/chrippa/livestreamer/pull/978](https://github.com/chrippa/livestreamer/pull/978)
just submitted a PR, enjoy!

------
rexf
Is there any special consideration/feature to help prevent streamers from
sharing secrets (keys, tokens, pw, etc)? Sharing secrets is easily done by
accident and can go unnoticed by the streamer.

~~~
jamiegreen
Hmmm this is not currently something we have any special feature to address
currently, except that if you realise you have shown the world a password or
credit card details ( it has happened!) they the best thing to do is stop the
stream and delete the video immediately. We are currently exploring other ways
we can help prevent this.

~~~
simcop2387
Letting people have a 30-60 second delay in the stream might help a lot in
being able to go and remove it before damage has been done. aside from that I
don't have any ideas myself

~~~
jamiegreen
Hmmmm not a bad idea, though that would put some friction in the interactive
nature of it, which is really important to us. We haven't had a lot of
problems with people showing passwords etc so far as people either 1. have two
screens or 2. just use window capture to avoid showing something they don't
want to.

~~~
simcop2387
window capture sounds like a pretty good suggestion for the time being. It'll
at least mitigate what can be revealed. It wouldn't work for everything but
there's definitely a balance to be found I bet. The delay is essentially how
traditional broadcasters manage it (with a shorter delay since there's someone
monitoring it separately) so it might still work out for this.

------
drakonka
I've never streamed coding before (or anything) and ended up going with
livecoding.tv vs Twitch to start with because of the smaller userbase (I guess
it felt a little less intimidating...like there was a big chance that nobody
would even see my stupid boring stream ;))

It's been pretty good so far, though I've only streamed a couple of times.
People actually DID end up watching the stream and participating/asking
questions about the project.

So far the one annoying thing with the site has been that there's a video
autoplaying each time I go to the home page. I want to go straight to my
dashboard or at least stream view when already logged in, and ideally not have
an autoplaying video/banner taking up the entire space of the home page above
the fold.

------
jamiegreen
Hi guys - Jamie here, one of the cofounders of Livecoding.tv. If anyone has
any questions about the site feel free to ask me and I will do my best to
answer!

~~~
pubby
Why do you require creating accounts in order to view stuff?

~~~
fotcorn
Yes thats very annoying don't do that. Requiring login for commenting/chat is
ok, but just for viewing is not.

------
anonbanker
The first company to do this without making me install Adobe Flash (i.e. use
webrtc and other existing technologies to do this) will be the first site I
ever use.

Right now, when I see "You must install Adobe Flash to use this site", I close
the tab and never return.

~~~
nindalf
FWIW, you can use Twitch without installing Flash in certain cases. If you
happen to be using OS X and Safari, you can add "/hls" to any URL to have it
play without Flash. If you're not averse to installing software, you could
look into Livestreamer [1] that plays the stream in VLC. The advantage in both
cases being improved fidelity and reduced battery consumption.

[1] -
[https://livestreamer.readthedocs.org/en/latest/install.html](https://livestreamer.readthedocs.org/en/latest/install.html)

~~~
mumphster
Just submitted a PR for livecoding.tv support as well:
[https://github.com/chrippa/livestreamer/pull/978](https://github.com/chrippa/livestreamer/pull/978)

I coded it live as well (heh), you can check out the vod on my channel
[https://livecoding.tv/ell](https://livecoding.tv/ell)

------
rudolf0
I know there are good reasons why it's not included, but a pet peeve of mine
is when sites like these do not allow you to sort by viewer count. I think
sorting options would be useful for this, especially once more people start
streaming on it.

~~~
jamiegreen
Definitely something we should add - thanks! You can actually already sort by
viewer count for videos, but not currently for livestreams.

------
Kiro
How about a plugin to your IDE where you can share certain folders live to
your audience so they can jump around the source code while you stream. Or a
way for the streamer to paste syntax highlighted snippets live to their
audience.

------
alexnking
I'm a huge fan of streaming coding, mostly because of Markus Persson and the
Ludum Dare streams (one of the first
[http://www.twitch.tv/notch/b/293076467](http://www.twitch.tv/notch/b/293076467)
where he builds a dungeon crawler, skip ahead a bit).

The big downside for me though is the login requirement just to watch - I
don't think I'd watch Twitch if I had to login just to see streams. I think
getting rid of that would really help you guys grow - code streams are pretty
addictive once you start watching.

~~~
jamiegreen
If you check now you should be able to watch without logging in.

------
neovive
This looks great! I used to watch some live streams on
[http://www.watchpeoplecode.com](http://www.watchpeoplecode.com), but stopped
due to time constraints. There is definitely a lot of value in watching the
workflow nuances of experienced devs, but I found that the value was too few
and far between. I still watch from time to time, but found pre-
recorded/edited video tutorials to be more efficient, although many of the
nuances and passive learning benefits are lost. Perhaps, edited livestreams
would work well.

~~~
ninjakeyboard
I keep intending to buy this - it's Kent Beck writing code using TDD.
[https://pragprog.com/screencasts/v-kbtdd/test-driven-
develop...](https://pragprog.com/screencasts/v-kbtdd/test-driven-development)

------
dzhiurgis
The benefit of watching it live is that you could potentially ask questions.

The benefit of recording is that you can increase the playback speed or fast
forward.

Audio annotation is a bonus in both circumstances.

~~~
jamiegreen
Totally agree!

------
mumphster
I've done a few streams on this site now (my channel is at
[http://livecoding.tv/ell](http://livecoding.tv/ell)) and my biggest issue so
far is the bitrate enforcement. My bitrate fluctuates randomly sometimes and
the website straight up boots me off my stream and shuts it down until I can
reconnect. Really annoying. I've stopped using it as much mainly because of
that.

~~~
jamiegreen
Hey, sorry you had a bit of trouble streaming. If you are getting errors, you
can add 'livecodingtv' on skype and someone should be able to help you with
your setup!

------
Udo
@jamiegreen, if you're reading this:

    
    
      - your notification email should not come from "support"
        (at least give the sender a good human-readable name)
      - it's good that you're showing a featured stream on the front page
        but there seems to be no way to get to their profile page from there
    

Overall I found the site has come along nicely since I last visited, good job!

------
machbio
I understand, the website is limited to coding - but what are the features
that make it different from twitch.tv.. until now, I would always look at the
streams on
[http://www.reddit.com/r/WatchPeopleCode/](http://www.reddit.com/r/WatchPeopleCode/)
to watch people code.. I dont see, this being any different from twitch

~~~
jamiegreen
I don't think we are trying to compete with Twitch on features, what
differentiates us is our focus on live education rather than being for
entertainment (though some streams can be pretty amusing!). Further, members
of our community are passionate about coding or learning to code, so it is a
different audience than Twitch's audience.

~~~
mylons
but i can go to twitch and find live coders. why am i going to another
platform when i can just use twitch for everything?

------
bx_
Looks cool, but I was a bit miffed by the use of the WeChat logo as a chat
icon on your /livestreams/ page (next to "join Q&A live chat") (see:
[http://www.wechat.com/en/](http://www.wechat.com/en/)) when in fact you are
using Candy Chat ([http://candy-chat.github.io/candy/](http://candy-
chat.github.io/candy/))

Looks like this was done somewhat intentionally, since in your HTML you have

    
    
        <i class="fa fa-weixin"></i>
    

(Weixin is the Chinese name for WeChat)

------
flippant
Why not just use Youtube? If you think setting up OBS is too much of a hassle,
you can use Hangouts on Air with the screen-sharing feature. I've been
streaming myself coding for the past two months. There have been no hiccups.

~~~
jamiegreen
Each to their own ;) We are trying to build a community focussed on live
coding education, which is more focussed than you will find on Youtube for
example.

------
lifeisstillgood
Ok, I'm going to bite. And as I am clearly a dinosaur, it's a big bite, but
... Why?! Could someone explain the benefits to watching someone code? It
would be like watching someone write a novel. Mostly thinking?

Could you recommend the best one or two - I should at least watch an exemplar
before rejecting this out of hand (never had the like in my day, watch someone
punch cards out? like watching this new fangled wireless radio).

I guess It's like people listening to game music, will be mainstream in six
months

------
liviu-
I wish I could filter videos by whether there is any live talking on the
stream -- I prefer listening to someone walking me through their thought
process along with watching them code.

~~~
jamiegreen
Good call - we should add something like a 'silent' tag that people could add.

------
DigitalSea
I am confused. I just loaded up the site and a video of a guy playing metal on
an electric guitar started livestreaming. Unless he connected his guitar to
his computer and code is being written, I don't see how this is live coding...
It's the LinuxFromScratch stream:
[https://www.livecoding.tv/jegas/](https://www.livecoding.tv/jegas/)

------
hayksaakian
Hey Founders!

Is there any way to embed your player on another website?

I see you use jwplayer, and I'm not sure how to embed that unless i mangle
together some javascript myself.

Something like an iframe that i cant feed

livecoding.tv/:streamer/:embed

would be nice

(Background, i work on a stream browsing website: overrustle.com and some of
my users requested to have streams from your site embedded there)

PS: chat embed would be great too!

~~~
jamiegreen
Hey!

Not currently able to embed livestreams or chats, but this is something we
definitely have in mind to develop, its just a question of priorities. You can
request this feature here:
[http://roadmap.livecoding.tv/](http://roadmap.livecoding.tv/)

Good luck with your site - looks cool :)

~~~
hayksaakian
Thanks! I found the most relevant idea here, and I upvoted it

"API – Technical Specification May 2015"

[http://roadmap.livecoding.tv/?p=45](http://roadmap.livecoding.tv/?p=45)

------
Matt3o12_
It'd be awesome if they supported more timezones. It is always annoying to
calculate the time difference

~~~
jamiegreen
Yeah currently the schedule 'should' calculate your timezone and display
streams on your time - however it is currently not perfect ;)

~~~
Matt3o12_
Yeah, I'm quite aware of the struggle with timezones. You apparently try to
pick the timezone based on my ip address, which is often good enough, but
there are better solutions. I think you should be able to get the timezone
with javascript and convert it on the client. This is the best solution IMHO
but that requires javascript. You should also aways offer a dropdown dialog
with _all timezones_. You currently only have 5 timezones to choose from, none
which I live in. All in all, you should do: If the user has already selected a
timezone, use this one. This is the most accurate option, you'll ever get. If
that was not provided, try to use javascript. If the user does not use
Javascript, fall back to the IP address.

~~~
jamiegreen
Alright thanks for the tip! Sincerely appreciated :)

------
manyanimals
I just find an easy method to free download twitch videos at
[http://www.allavsoft.com/how-to/twitch-video-
download.html](http://www.allavsoft.com/how-to/twitch-video-download.html)
Hope it is what you are looking for.

------
joeyspn
I'm curious about the way they power the streams... I see they're using django
as web framework, but for live streaming... which media server? looks like
Nginx's rtmp module in dedicated servers? why a flash videoplayer and not
html5?

~~~
protopete
HTML5 video doesn't work with live video unfortunately, while flash RTMP
streaming does. Alternatives include MPEG DASH and Apple HTTP Live Streaming,
but not all browsers support them.

~~~
joeyspn
I recall that being a limiting factor 3-4 years ago when I was working with
RTMP & P2P/RTMFP, but in mid 2015? I thought HTML5 was ready for live video...
Reading now about Media Source Extensions (I just discovered the API) I guess
we're _finally_ around the corner... =)

[https://w3c.github.io/media-source/](https://w3c.github.io/media-source/)

------
willyyr
After registering yesterday my inbox got flooded with email notifications. I'm
unable to switch them off from my mobile since the page is somehow broken.
Please add a "disable all" link to the emails without the need to log in.

------
kup0
I really love this idea, as someone still in the early stages of learning
programming.

~~~
jamiegreen
Makes me very happy to hear that :)

------
cmdrfred
Go to the site first thing I see is black-dragon-walking though-flames.gif
(with "JEGAS MAN-CAVE stand by" scrawed in the top right) and some barely
audible speech over terrible (pan flutes, really?) music.

~~~
jamiegreen
Oh dear :/ I guess you saw jegas when he went for a smoke break... sorry your
first experience wasn't the best!

------
jnhuynh
Why are so many of the streamer profile field's required? Some of the fields
contribute little to the streamer's channel and yet are required.

E.g. "Languages I want to learn" and "Favorite Line of code"

~~~
jamiegreen
Good point - I think we just wanted a balance between having an empty profile
and having too many requirements, but perhaps we leaned too far in the
required fields direction!

------
xytop
I'm wondering if there are people who are streaming their closed source
code..that might be against their company's privacy agreement. So in theory
majority of streams should be about opensource projects.

------
smaili
Does anyone know what technology is used to providing streaming? Both in terms
of the broadcaster and the viewers. There doesn't seem to be any big open
source projects in this space from what I can tell.

~~~
nacs
Check out nginx-rtmp [1] and ffserver [2] (from the ffmpeg team).

[1]: [https://github.com/arut/nginx-rtmp-
module](https://github.com/arut/nginx-rtmp-module)

[2]:
[https://www.ffmpeg.org/ffserver.html](https://www.ffmpeg.org/ffserver.html)

------
0x524
Looks really, really interesting, but I don't really feel like installing
Flash. There's this thing called Livestreamer that works really well (not
only) with Twitch.

~~~
jamiegreen
Yeah it would be good to get rid of it at some point - need to check with my
cofounder why we use it but I agree flash isn't great.

------
dj_doh
Collaborative a.k.a Pair Programming is really neat. I've done that in patches
and found it really interesting and insightful. But that was some 6yrs ago.

------
reledi
IIRC this started out on reddit with a Google spreadsheet to schedule streams.
They've come a long way, I'm excited for the journey!

~~~
jamiegreen
ah the good old days of the Google Spreadsheet (well 3 months but it seems
like an age :)

------
dylanjermiah
What are the benefits of live a opposed to pre recorded? Ability to ask
questions and get immediate responses?

~~~
jamiegreen
Pretty much! The interaction is a key part of it.

------
manyanimals
I just find an easy method to free download twitch videos at Allavsoft. Hope
it is what you are looking for.

------
AustinScript
I tried it. I wasn't a fan of streaming @ 15 FPS w/ a max bitrate of 1,500
Kbps.

~~~
jamiegreen
Sorry you didnt have a good experience. :/ Did you have problems with your
stream quality? Normally our setting should be enough to have a good quality
stream and if you have trouble you can get some help from our support team on
skype to make sure your screen is clear and readable.

------
widforss
Hey, looks cool. But Flash? Seriously guys ...

~~~
jamiegreen
Copied from another reply: Yeah it would be good to get rid of it at some
point - need to check with my cofounder why we use it but I agree flash isn't
great.

------
codygman
Aww, no Haskell category. Please add one? :)

~~~
jamiegreen
We still get people coding haskell! I think for us it is difficult but we have
to draw the line somewhere, as everyone wants their favourite language to be a
top category.... not sure how best to solve this at the moment!

------
tux
This is awesome :-) Thanks for the link!

~~~
jamiegreen
Glad you like it!

------
rhgraysonii
Any plans for Linux support?

~~~
jamiegreen
you can already stream from Linux, just use this software:
[https://obsproject.com/download](https://obsproject.com/download)

------
innguest
Allow me a small tale.

I remember on #lisp at Freenode IRC, there was a helpful soul that would help
folks by telling them to click a link. Upon landing on the page, the person
being helped would see a mirror of the helper's Emacs buffer being updated
live as they coded against a Lisp image and the results would show.

Lispers, always seeing ahead of everyone else.

~~~
pubby
I used to do this using termcast.org (via telnet). It's a simple and
lightweight way to show people what you're coding.

------
curiously
Might as well make a twitch clone for people painting fences

~~~
jamiegreen
:/ sorry you think that!

~~~
panorama
Yeah, GP post is unnecessarily negative. I think this is a great idea and knew
there was always a space for it.

Twitch has really changed the entertainment scene (millions of people
individually consuming hours of streamed content a day). More importantly,
there's a large subset of Twitch streamers who don't just stream for
entertainment purposes, but for education as well. Often times, watching
someone do a thing is a lot more instructive than reading about someone doing
a thing.

There are people getting much better at video games by watching informative
streamers. There's no reason to think that, eventually, live stream coding
will be another popular form of learning to code as well.

GP post makes me sad, honestly, due to how willfully ignorant that opinion
appears to be and the fact that it's so unnecessarily negative towards
something that can legitimately help a bunch of people.

~~~
jamiegreen
Thanks - nice to get positive feedback as well :)

