
Scrimba: a video format for communicating code - ingve
https://scrimba.com/
======
mrborgen
Thanks a lot for all the feedback, everyone! We're overwhelmed by all the
positive comments. If you have any feature requests, please submit them as
issues here:
[https://github.com/scrimba/community](https://github.com/scrimba/community)

Also, a few people have asked us how to create content, so we're obviously not
making it clear enough. To do that, simply create an account (with GitHub) and
start screencasting in our browser editor.

If you want to get in touch with us, send me an email at per@scrimba.com.

Finally, I want to mention that we're applying for YC this spring. If any of
you have any tips or connections you think we should speak with, please let me
know :)

~~~
faceyspacey
Y apply to YC. If ur serious about anything and ur a serious developer, u
don't need money, connections, etc. Y dilute yourself, Y forever be beholden
to investors. I know I don't want anyone telling me what to do regarding my
baby.

Programming apps is quicker than ever now. All you need is a ramen noodle
revenue stream to keep you afloat while you build.

I urge you to question why you really wanna go to YC. Is it to get consigned
by "daddy"? It sure can feel good. It's an accomplishment of it's own, but a
sub-par intention.

You got this far, why not monetize on your own so you can support yourself
through your product, and never have to give up any equity and rights to
decision making for YOUR COMPANY!

Too many people are eager to allow others to have a say on their baby. Don't
do it unless you absolutely need to. Start charging. I'll pay for this
product. Forget YC. Believe in yourself. Are you a follower that eagerly seeks
direction from others or a leader who just knows what must be done and doesn't
look to others for validation. Validation seekers will always fare less well
because they are less confident. So the question is: why are you not confident
in yourselves? Why is this going to fail if you don't go to YC? To put the
question in the positive, how could you get to where you wanna go and farther
without YC?? What do you need? Is it just ramen noodle revenue for you guys
while you build? If so, maybe there are other ways. Have you even tried to
explore them?

~~~
mrborgen
Fair points, the reason is simply because I think we'll be able to build a
bigger company if we join YC. Specifically, the pie will grow more than the 7%
YC takes from it.

But I might be wrong of course.

~~~
jjeaff
Let me just add my two cents, having gone both routes. The mantra you will
hear all day long is exactly that... Wouldn't you rather have a smaller piece
of a huge pie than a big piece of a small pie?

But I would urge you to weigh things out. That first 7% is just the beginning.
They will urge you to hire the best and brightest, time is of the essence.
They will tell you not to worry about money, more VC money will flow. And then
you find yourself with a big payroll and the need to raise another round, and
then another, and then another. Before you know it, you've built the $100
million business you always wanted, but you aren't in charge any more and you
own maybe 10 percent. Dilution happens faster than you realize. (Unless your
growth is off the charts and you can negotiate amazing terms because VCs are
falling over themselves to give you money, ala facebook.)

At that point the question becomes, would you rather have a hundred percent of
a $10 million business or 10 percent of a $100m business? I sure as heck would
rather own all of the smaller business. You don't go to the board to ask for a
raise, you don't hope for a liquidity event so you can get rich one day. You
don't waste time trying to convince investors that you will succeed. You
control your destiny.

But to each his own. Maybe you would never be able to get to that $10m on your
own. And maybe you would rather be known as the founder of something big.
Nothing wrong with that. Just know that the headaches and distractions of
going the VC route are legion.

~~~
rmason
I've never applied to YC but that isn't totally correct. There's no one
forcing you to raise venture capital. I know of YC companies who are quite
successful who have never raised money or stopped after raising a smallish
angel round and still own a majority of their company. Granted they're in the
minority, but it can be done.

~~~
jjeaff
Ya, it definitely happens. But if the company didn't need to move on to raise
more money (probably the biggest argument for YC is that it will be easier to
raise more), I would question whether YC was really necessary in the first
place. Was YC the only place you could have raised $100k? And if you were able
to do it by raising only 100k, perhaps you could have done it without their
money.

------
erikpukinskis
If you provided an embeddable iframe widget that I could put on my own site,
and intercept the file changes to do my own rendering, something like:

    
    
        <script src="http://scrimba.com/widget.js">
        scrimbaWidget(".my-container", "sc-ri-mbaID", function onFileChanged(name, source, output) {
          persistToMyBackend(name, source)
          output.innerHTML = renderFromMyServer(name)
        })
        </script>
    

... this would be a very interesting platform play. You would be providing
essentially the audio, text capture, and synchronization, but I could keep
doing my app hosting. Not having to store audio or deal with browser
incompatibilities around recording and playback would be worth some money to
me.

Like Filestack for screen recording.

------
rudimental
Really cool tool. Congratulations and great job! Look forward to seeing where
this goes.

Feedback: the rerun project button is hard to locate and not prominent. I
wanted to rerun the project after making some changes. I felt encouraged to
save (fork) or resume playback, overwriting my edits. Make it more intuitive
to rerun after making an edit.

------
sly010
I really like the idea and I expect to see a lot of great tutorials in this
format. I would really use a version that works with tmux or iterm though,
something like asciinema but for multiple terminals + a browser. I wouldn't
even mind if the result is read only as long as the viewer can copy paste from
it.

Edit: Just to add one more note: I know recording terminal and chrome at the
same time is too complicated to productize, but I wouldn't mind having to set
it up. I am a developer. I set things up.

------
SeanAnderson
I literally yelled aloud, "Wait! Stop! What is going on?! THIS IS COOL." when
I first interacted with your product. This is novel & fantastic. Well done.

EDIT: I've gone ahead and moved all my UI/UX feedback into GitHub per your
request. Good luck working on this! :)

~~~
somebee
Thanks for really valuable feedback :) Great if you want to submit and follow
up at github.com/scrimba/community! We hadn't really planned for a HN launch
yet so a lot of the ux is rough around the edges.

~~~
SeanAnderson
Yep :) I know how valuable the "I've never used this before" interactions can
be with a product! I'll toss up an issue!

------
sagebird
This is a wonderful idea and execution.

Tip for people trying this out, to experience it fully you have to:

\- login with github \- edit some text \- then hit play again. The preview
will then update.

\- also, you can record your own edits to the video.

I am surprised by the quality and thoughtful demos.

Some simple things would make it better, like updating automatically without
hitting play. Also, I think the videos should have x buttons to close them,
not just clicking in another area.

~~~
judofyr
Nice to hear you praise the quality. We haven't spent a lot of time on
producing the current casts, it's just that the tool makes it easy to create
casts of high-production value. No more fiddling with screen-recording
software and post-production. It makes a big difference when you can go from
"I want to explain this" to a finished cast in three minutes.

The "casts are shown in an overlay"-feature was released yesterday. It
certainly requires more iterations. Thanks for the feedback.

~~~
brothercolor
Neat! The audience for the tool seems to be someone who can hear, though. Has
there been any awareness or discussion of those who cannot hear? Of those that
cannot hear, a large majority use captioning or sign language. Video in a PIP
mode, or captioning support, would go a long way in including everyone to the
party. Also, the earlier these features are added, the more content is
accessible.

------
fny
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like this written in a Imba[0].

[0]: [http://imba.io](http://imba.io)

~~~
somebee
You are correct :) Initially it was meant as a tool to teach people Imba, but
now we support other languages as well!

------
Ruphin
This is the coolest web tech I have seen in a while.

I am actually not super convinced on the usecase of being able to edit the
code at any time, but simply being able to copy it is already so much added
value over traditional video course material.

I will definitely be checking out the possibilities with this.

~~~
goshx
A good usecase is for when you are learning something through the video and
can play with it right there. Khan Academy uses something similar and it is
awesome.

------
IanDrake
Super cool. One issue...

I was watching the flexbox video and modified the CSS code but the view layout
didn't update. I clicked the save button thinking that would update the view,
but then it had me sign up. After signing up, I ended up with a fork of the
video. Cool, but not what I wanted.

All I really wanted to do was fool around with the code while I had it paused,
see the updates in the layout, and click play again - at which point I would
have expected the code to revert to the script.

~~~
judofyr
Oh, you need to click the "run" button (upper right) once before the CSS
changes apply. After that it should be live. We need to make that more clear.

------
Dangeranger
Wow this is so much better than a traditional video explanation of code.
Really well done and polished for a beta project.

Speaking of 'beta', what is the plan for Scrimba? Are you interested in it
being an open place for sharing videos and demonstrations? Or are you planning
on monetizing in some way?

~~~
mrborgen
We plan to add monetization options yes. Basically sell courses through
Scrimba. But it will also be possible to simply share casts for free.

~~~
benmcnelly
Thats great!

------
drumdance
Very cool.

In the last few weeks I've been thinking something similar would be great for
podcasts. Not on-screen editing, but tools for displaying information and
soliciting feedback.

In my case I've been listening to a lot of podcasts about real estate.
Frequently they reference a PDF or web site to sign up for more info. It would
be nice if that just showed up onscreen rather than having to open a browser
on my phone (especially when I'm in the car).

Dedicated apps can do this, of course, but I an open protocol would have a lot
more uptake from semi-technical people who want to create simple online course
distributed via podcast.

~~~
nichochar
There is so much opportunity for learning here... I agree, I wish podcasts had
some kind of technology that allowed you to follow things that are hard to
convey through Audio.

~~~
sly010
I once started writing a podcast app like that. As a listener I would reallly
like the idea. Unfortunately I don't see why a podcaster would do the job of
adding metadata on my platform if they don't get anything out of it. If it was
a core of their value proposition, they would probably use a mooc platform and
not a podcast.

Then I though I would probably need to build a more useful tool to manage
other needs of a publisher, like website, feed generation, pushing to multiple
platforms, etc. That way I would have all sorts of metadata for free AND I
would provide value to the publishers (automatic publishing to all other
platforms). I could host the content too and give them download numbers, could
post listening habits from my app, and all that. But that is a lot of work
though, before I can provide any value to either the listeners or the
publishers.

Then I listened to a podcast about the podcast ecosystem (how meta) about how
podcasters actually benefit from the ecosystem being so distributed. If there
was a single format for metadata dictated by a single company (would probably
be apple) it would eat into their advertising revenue. They would not admit
it, but it's actually good for publishers if they only have rough download
numbers. Without clicks, they can just make up their numbers, and sell ads
even though everyone fast forwards on the ads. If they had actual clicks,
their revenue would become dependent on it.

~~~
drumdance
For sponsored podcasts you're right. But much of what I listen to doesn't have
advertising, or it's indirect in the form of interviewing guests who promote
their products.

For example, one of the podcasts I really like is run by a guy who a) knows a
lot about real estate and b) sells a SaaS product for people who want to do
what he does. He frequently references show notes, PDFs, webinar signups and
the like in his show, and I engage with most of that stuff... if I remember to
do it when I get home.

In his case the value per customer is quite high, so he would probably make
the investment in rich media. He doesn't have sponsors and so isn't beholden
to click through rates.

And I'd wager that's true for the vast majority of podcasts. A handful make
money from advertising because they have really large audiences. The rest do
it as a hobby or to promote their businesses.

------
paulojreis
Much like IanDrake said, this is super cool but kind of "primes" the user into
thinking that he'll be able to play around with the code while paused. It'd be
great if you supported that, e.g. by doing a "fork" into local storage.

Anyway, the project is really great and impressive! :)

~~~
mrborgen
We do support that. Hit the 'Edit' button in the lower right corner :)

------
saganus
This is really cool!

However... I might be a bit obtuse or something, but how can I produce my own
videos?

Maybe I'm overlooking a link?

~~~
mrborgen
Just login and you'll see a plus icon in the top right corner:)

~~~
saganus
Aha!

My script blocker was preventing the button from showing up.

I though I was going mad...

Thanks!

------
40acres
Wow, this could be a game changer. Imagine using a tool like this to teach
math as well. Great job guys.

------
netgusto
Wow, this is far much better for code than standard videos.

Is it recorded using the scrimba.com website ? Is it only for web code ? The
about page [https://scrimba.com/about](https://scrimba.com/about) does not
explain much.

~~~
judofyr
Yes! You can sign up now and record your own casts. For now it's focused on
client-side libraries, but we're looking at supporting server-side languages
as well.

~~~
jdormit
What languages are on the road map?

Also, really really well done!

~~~
mrborgen
Not 100% decided exactly which. But expect the most popular ones. More info
will come :)

------
zokier
Basically "web version" of asciinema, right?

------
LukasRos
Great idea and great execute, I like it! One thing that I haven't seen yet but
what I think would be a really important feature would be embeddable "videos"
which developers could put as a widget in an iframe on e.g. their website
blog.

------
ChicagoBoy11
This is insanely well executed - like most people here I am psyched to play
with it

------
throwaway_374
I was thinking about something very similar, essentially embedding an IDE on
top of Youtube videos. Like others, I agree this is very neat. Is it just me
that can't hear any audio?

~~~
metasean
If I stop the video, then use the "resume video" in the lower-right corner,
then I get the audio but it's out of sync by however long it took me to stop
the video in the first place.

------
nmstoker
Maybe you need a YouTube video detailing the experience, as it obviously isn't
quite as good on mobile Chrome (no sound, I only realised from the comments
here; also awkward to control accurately).

A video would also give people a sense of what the environment/process looked
like before they hand over details - I'm happy to trade my details for a good
experience once I know it's likely to be a good experience, less so when I'm
not confident, it becomes a bit chicken and egg...

------
speps
Stuck on "loading" in Edge on all videos.

~~~
avenoir
Same here. Console shows syntax error after loading a stream.

------
juliosueiras
The moment I try scrimba, I notice is using the code completion from VS code,
so I went with my instinct and open a file with .ts(for typescript) and it
work

EDIT: a bit hackish but it is possible to add d.ts, by putting the file
directly(like creating a file call jquery.d.ts and put the jquery def inside),
the def will actually load in

------
funkaster
Great job! Is there any other way to login that's not github? I'm trying to
move away from github and so far the only thing preventing me are sites that
require github login. It would be great if you offered just plain old email
login :)

~~~
sdflkd
Why are you trying to move away from Github, out of curiosity?

~~~
funkaster
just a personal stance. It's a good service, I just personally don't like it.

------
dmux
Is there sound accompanying the video? I watched several but didn't hear
anything.

~~~
judofyr
Yes. It's supposed to have audio. Could you submit an issue at
[https://github.com/scrimba/community](https://github.com/scrimba/community)
with details about your browser/environment?

------
quickben
Beware: The website asks my mobile browser for permissions to take pictures
and video.

~~~
somebee
Oh, it's probably because we ask for webrtc mic-access when you record. Will
look into it :)

------
Ahmed90
Great job,

\- Any plan on embedding option for 3rd party websites? \- Self-hosted
versions?

~~~
mrborgen
Yes!

------
colochef
This is really awesome! I was wondering about how you are planning to monetize
or sustain the project. Are you going to give the ability for users to
monetize their own contributions?

~~~
mrborgen
Yes, that's on our bucket list!

~~~
somebee
We're still young so we have plenty of time! :)

------
tyingq
Looks great on desktop. On my android though, it's slow, low-contrast, and a
bit janky.

The desktop experience, though, is better than comparable stuff I've seen.
Nice work.

------
benmcnelly
Man this is good. Any plans to extend it to other languages?

~~~
judofyr
Thanks. Yes, other (server-side) languages are definitely coming. We're
currently working with a prototype that integrates with Jupyter/IPython, and
we're also playing with the idea of using Docker images for giving a full
terminal. The biggest challenge is to give a powerful execution environment
_and_ make it easy for the viewer to play with the code and be able to run it.

~~~
hairyjewbear
Do you have a blog where you would update this?

~~~
mrborgen
We'll create a blog soon, which will be linked to at Scrimba.com.

------
JepZ
Would love to see something like this for golang. I mean the tour of go is
already great, but this is yet another step better :-)

------
ElonsMosque
Awesome work, this seems like something pulled from the future.

One quick question have you considered including Python related stuff?

~~~
mrborgen
Support for Python and various other server-side languages is on our roadmap
yes.

------
zichy
This is a great idea.

I have one small suggestion: Please give the cursor a better contrast or
outline/shadow.

------
ChicagoBoy11
Does anyone have any tips to start playing around in this environment with
ES2015 stage-2?

~~~
mrborgen
We'll open up for that soon!

------
pjc50
Minor nit: some of the thumbnails report they've been viewed "1.52" times.

~~~
somebee
Thank you for reporting. Fixed now.

------
johnomarkid
If I edit some text in a video that I created, do I need to re-record all of
the audio?

~~~
mrborgen
As for now, you can't change the code after it has been recorded audio over
it.

------
applecrazy
Bug: if you hover over the "popular" ones, some say 3.81 views, etc.

------
theobon
feature request: Ability to change playback speed. Eg 0.5x, 1.5x, 2x

~~~
judofyr
I've opened an issue for tracking this here:
[https://github.com/scrimba/community/issues/9](https://github.com/scrimba/community/issues/9)

------
lilactown
Is there a way to search all videos?

~~~
somebee
We're working on search, discovery, and sorely needed social features as we
speak. It's coming very soon!

------
aemadrid
very cool tool. would be even better if you add #tags so say you can filter
all the #imba casts.

------
abrkn
Looks great! Signup took seconds.

------
rajangdavis
Insane and well executed!

------
xellisx
Needs a volume slider.

------
rachkovsky
Please add a favicon!

------
divanvisagie
This is pointless, tried editing , did not work as I thought it would. Sad!

~~~
hmottestad
There is a small "play" button in the top right corner you have to press after
editing.

You don't need permissions to edit, but you do need them to save.

~~~
divanvisagie
Yeah I saw that , little bit too minimal to be honest , doesn't scream "click
me" so was a bit confused initially. Though it was just another play button
for the video. Maybe moving it to the output window would be a bit less
confusing

------
heywire
Just wanted to say I think you've done an excellent job with this!

------
marknadal
Wow, very exciting! Already starting to use it. Question: How to embed a
scrimba "video" on another page?

~~~
mrborgen
Support for that will come, but it might be a pro feature. Any specific use
case you were thinking?

~~~
marknadal
Just to post in blogs, github pages, etc. I'm biased but I think you would get
free marketing if people embed it, and a paid feature for people to keep them
private (password locked, whatever).

That way people who publish free educational content (freecodeacademy, me -
example, a todo app tutorial:
[http://gun.js.org/think.html](http://gun.js.org/think.html) , etc.) would
spread scrimba awareness. The inverse, sites that charge for classes - Udemy,
etc., have a natural incentive to keep their content secret, which they'd have
to pay for.

------
ythn
This is so badly needed in a world of video coding tutorials (cough Unity3D).
Awesome technology

------
jlarocco
<rant> I cannot wait for the "everything needs to be a small looping video
clip" fad to go away.

Video clips of typing make no sense. The animation is distracting, it provides
no useful information, and they _always_ either loop too quickly (frustrating
me because I lose my place and have to wait for the whole thing to come back),
or go too slowly (frustrating me because it won't hurry up). A 3 second loop
is great for a hamster meme, it's not great for displaying text that I want to
read.

It's like an entire group of people completely misunderstood why GIF
animations were despised and died off.

Seriously, what value are these video clips adding? </rant>

~~~
rajangdavis
You can pause and edit the code inline...

~~~
phaed
You can also skip to the end and mess with the finished code via the progress
bar and edit button if you don't care for the explanation.

