Learning in public: live coding on Twitch

Layla Porter: Hello everybody. I hope you're having a fantastic DevRelCon already and it was really good just to see Ramon's presentation there. Lots of good advice in there that hopefully I'm going to build on flesh out different aspects of that and hopefully by the end of the session you'll have a more rounded picture of everything to do with the Twitch side of it. So I'm Layla and I've enabled dark mode, so ignore this picture. You don't have to ignore it, but it's still me. I'm a developer advocate at VMware. I'm a Microsoft MVP at Web Star and I also organise my local mk. net user group and that probably leads on to me being a net developer.

Yes, I'm so Twitch. You've probably heard of it as a gaming platform where people play games, usually Fortnite and they're all teeny boppers or whatever, but there is a growing community of coders all learning in public and sharing their knowledge.

So that's what I want to go through today. Just give you an introduction to the community and how you can get involved. Now, when you first think about live coding on Twitch, you should definitely go and check it out as a viewer and don't just jump straight into turning your camera on and streaming. And I think there's a lot of reasons why people watch Twitch and live coding on Twitch, and I think it's really invaluable to understand those reasons Before you start yourself. I did some polls and found out the reason why people watch live coding. Many of them use it as a background noise and that's kind of like talk show radio.

So you'll have a lot of people just out there half listening to it whilst they're working. They probably won't have you on stream, on screen I should say, and they'll just be listening and if you say something that they want to add to, they'll come and unlock.

You'll see things like luck coming up in your chat, in chat of others, and that means someone's half listening. A lot of people, the most prominent reason why people want to watch live coding is they want to see how others solve problems. They don't want to see perfect curated code. They don't want to see YouTube, they want to see you getting stuck. They want to see you fudging the keys. They want to see you going, I don't know how to deserialize Jason.

I always have to look it up. That's my own personal nemesis. Des Serialising and serialising Jason always have to look it up. They want to learn stuff. You'll have developers of all skills, all levels in all walks of life coming onto your show. They'll want to learn stuff, they'll want to share their thoughts and opinions and it, it's a really great community.

Many come on to help others. They may be more senior and they want to come on and maybe someone is learning a new programming language and they'll want to come and cheer them on and help them if they get stuck.

And a big factor is for entertainment. People find it entertaining, they want to see people cracking jokes, interviewing other people. So it's a really interesting platform to be on. And the final one is networking. Many live coders have their own Discord or a team Discord and they invite viewers to come and join them on there. So you can have a whole host of people continuing the conversation behind the scenes on Discord. And it is usually discord. There may be some slacks, but predominantly discord, right?

So when you first start to watch live coding, there is a little bit of an etiquette to Twitch and it's really worth going to the about page for someone's coding stream and seeing what their chat rules or chat guidelines are.

There's also lots of other information that would be really interesting. So generally there's going to be things about bullying, racism, all sorts of isms and phobias. So make sure that you abide by those. And there may also be some personal guidelines. I myself like to say how people should be involved in the stream, the language that they use. I get it, I find it overwhelming when people go, you should do this. No, no, you are doing it wrong.

So I ask people to try and avoid those terms, so it's really good. Just go check out the stream rules there. You're about, they'll tell you about their hardware so you don't have to go and interrupt the stream and go, Hey, what computer are you using? And things like that. There's a lot of information, so go check that out.

And you really want to be a part of the community because it is a community and it's a very different community, and I think if you go in with an open mind and want to be involved and talk to people, you will learn new things. You can help solve problems in a collaborative way. You'll watch others, people and how they approach problems, which is really invaluable for your own development and you just make friends.

It's a really nice place. I've made so many friends. Yes, there are some horrible people out there, but your community gets behind you, they support you, they help you. They chase off all the trolls so it can feel like a really safe place and a safe place to fail. That's the great thing about it. Now, there is a glossary going on here. There's a lot of terms you'll hear, so let's just go through them.

You may hear someone say, who shall we raid?

And it's not an antagonistic term. At the end of a stream, you usually take all of your viewers over to another live coder, so you raid their stream with all of your viewers and then you leave. So it's a really nice way of supporting other streamers, introducing your viewers to other streamers and bolstering those other streamers, viewers. Now you'll hear of a subscription Now that is different from a follower or a subscription on YouTube. A subscription on YouTube is very similar to a follower on Twitch, but a subscription on Twitch is paid for and it's paid per streamer and it gives you ad free viewing. If you're not a subscriber, you won't get ad free viewing, you won't get the streamer specific otes and things like that. So by subscribing you support your streamer and you get better viewing.

There's something called cheers and you can buy bits.

It's kind of like a Twitch currency and each bit is roughly equivalent to a penny or a cent, and you can cheer from a couple of cents to as much as you want on a stream. Now as you watch a stream, you will start to earn channel points and they'll appear at the bottom of your chat window and these channel points can be spent on the stream and your streamer will set up different ways that you can spend them. It may be some kind of interaction on stream if they have a chat chatbot set up, it may be just that you can highlight your text or things like that. So look out for those gift subs. Now there are generous people on Twitch who want to support their streamer of choice and they may already have a subscription.

So what they do is they buy subscriptions, gift them to other people in the chats, just a one-off subscription for a month and it supports their streamer. It's nice community building. So always thank someone if they give you a gift sub or if you're streaming and you receive gift subs.

Always thank the person gifting. The last thing I want to talk about is a hype train. I was very confused when I got a hype train and when I was on one as well. So when enough people cheer and subscribe, a hype train starts and this is kind of a way to get people spending more money and it unlocks special hype emotes and it's nothing more than hyping the streamer on to continue and it's just a real fun, buzzy community sort of experience, right? So a best place to start off is in software and game development.

We used to be in science and technology, but we recently got our own sort of channel inside Twitch category, not channel. Some people will be in podcasts and chat shows or just chatting depending on what type of content they are, but this is the best place to start. Now you as the streamer, you've been watching streams and now you feel like you want to give it a go.

Now I just want to point out that get my right way around. That picture over there is not what you need. You may want to go there eventually, but you do not need that to start, just as Rahman said. Now I want to share why I code on Twitch because this may explain some of the thought process behind it and why you might want to stream on Twitch. Now in DevRel, you know that you don't really get that much opportunity to write code all the time because you might be creating a talk, you might be travelling to a conference, you may be running a community event, you'll be writing some blog posts or doing other stuff.

So just actually sitting down and writing code to stay current is really invaluable, and that's what I use my streams to do. I go and explore the new things. I also have empathy for the people I'm advocating for because I'm going through the same trials and tribulations that they are.

I also can't give up. I'm prone to rage quitting. I'll flip that desk and I'll storm off and I'll go for a walk. Can't do that when there's lots of people watching. I have to persevere. I have to try and crack that problem, so it makes me continue and stick with it. There is also the power of rubber ducking. Speaking through your problems out loud can really help to clarify them in your head so you make better progress.

Also, the chat is always there to help you. There's mob programming and inspiration to help get you through those difficult things.

So it's a whole host of reasons why I do it, and I also like to meet the people in the community and talk to them. So those are my reasons. Yours may be different. Now what do you need to do to actually get started? Well, I think you should always start small and dream big. You may absolutely categorically hate streaming and then you've bought all this gear and you're like, well, that was a waste of time, wasn't it?

All you need is a discreet microphone. You don't need something big and fancy like this. It may be just this little microphone like this or the one on your head cans, just as long as it's not the one on your laptop. If you can help it, a camera of any sort, the one on your laptop at a push if you have to, but it's better to have the one on your laptop than no camera at all.

People are there for you to engage with you, and that is the key thing to remember. Don't not have your camera. I mean, if you're having a really bad day, don't stream, but there's no point in streaming. If you're having a really bad day, you need to bring energy to it.

So just think about having a camera. Now, OBS, as Rahman said, it's a open source. It's a really good place to start. It can be a little bit tricky, but there's lots of videos out there to help you get started. I'm just about to release one on how I set up my OBS, and if you are unsure about that, things like Streamy yard are really good, there's a free tier for that and it can make it really accessible to get started. And you do need some patience because it can really take a while for people to find your stream.

I remember early on sitting there talking to my one colleague thinking, why am I doing this? There's no one here.

I'm sweating buckets. I'm having a palpitations because I'm that nervous here and there's no one here. But just keep going, keep talking, just try out different things. Maybe your title wasn't right. Think click bait here. Go for some wild and wacky titles to get people to come in and watch your stream. And the key thing I want to say, which I should have said that I get from streaming in the reasons why is it makes me a more fluent speaker. It makes me much more able to deal with problems.

So when I go and speak at a conference, it's not so scary if I have a demo fail or if I forget what I'm saying. I'm so used to continually speaking and dealing with problems as they arise, that conference talks have become easier for me. So that's another really good reason to try out live coding on stream as a devian. Now, back to chat. Why you should care about chat. They are the most important thing on your stream. Forget the code, forget everything else. It's chat interactivity with them.

If chat is active, they are going to motivate you. They're going to support you, they're going to keep you going.

You'll get mob programming. They love to help. If you get stuck, they're going to help you. They're going to come up with suggestions, they're going to come up with new ways of doing it, remind you of things that you said you were going to do. It's just really useful. And if you have good chatters in your stream and lots of viewers, more viewers will come because obviously like, whoa, there's lots of people in that stream.

What are they doing? So it's kind of like keep get that ball rolling and more will join, but just look after them and remember why they are there to watch live coding. They want to see how you solve problems they want. So laugh, joke, be yourself. I'm not particularly funny, but I do yell at my code. I get annoyed. I'm whine at it. I have blank moments where I can't remember anything I'm doing and chat likes you to be authentic.

So just bring your real authentic self. This is me. Oh, I did it again that way. Live coding. You can see I'm nice and big. I'm there visible. My code is huge. Just like Raan said, make sure your font is big so people can view it anywhere.

Now, there are a couple of approaches to your content fully planned. This is good at first. If you're unsure about how to do something and the whole live coding or if you're on a time budget. So if you've got an hour to do your show, if you want to reuse your content, post it to YouTube. I suggest this tactic as well slightly planned that says you're getting a bit more confident. You may have done a proof of concept. You've already gone through the docs or maybe it's seat of your pants, it's authentic chat, loves it. You go in not knowing anything about it.

People can follow your path. They can relate to how all of other developers are doing it, how a senior developer is doing it. If they're a junior, they're like, oh, I don't quite know. Oh look, she's struggling. She has to Google how to serialise and serialise Jason. Oh, phew, I have to do that. So this process is really authentic and this is what I would recommend. Once you've built up to the confidence and the stamina, it needs stamina.

What I will say is that Twitch streams are hard to edit and reuse into YouTube. So I use them personally to create the proof of concepts for my other content. I go and develop the applications that I need to create my YouTube videos and my blog. So I use, this is my playground and to get feedback from viewers. So just bear that in mind that it's not easy just to take this content, which is uncurated, very ephemeral and make curated content out of it.

Now, this is you while streaming, you're juggling everything. You have to stay on top of chat, you have to manage a broadcast, you have to keep viewers engaged. And on top of that, you have to remember how to code.

It's not easy and it can really feel like chat is shouting at you. They're not. They're trying to help you, but it can really feel like it. I've been streaming for a long time and I still get overwhelmed sometimes and I feel like I dunno what to do. Everyone's saying to do something slightly differently. I think I might do this. I dunno what to do. And you'll feel like that.

And it's okay. It's normal. Have some backup plans. If you feel overwhelmed, which I lay you words, you will at some stage have a be right back screen. Just take a five minute break that can really help.

Just step away and chill, tell chat, okay, appreciate all your help, but I'm just going to try this. Let's go with this and then we'll circle back to what you're suggesting. Thanks though, folks, if you are really stuck and you just want to give up and that's okay, pivot.

Say, we're just going to leave this for now. Let's go and try something else. Let's go and do this thing over here that we need to do later on. Just pivot. Don't be afraid to do it. Blue Peter, maybe that's a British, but have a backup one you made earlier to bring out. And if it's just really too much, just say folks, I think I'm going to call it there today. Thank you so much for watching.

Just be kind to yourself. Look after yourself because if you blow up on stream, you're only going to get upset by it.

Now, participate in the community. Go be on other people's streams, big up other people's streams. Just be a whole part of it. It's really helpful. It'll come back to you and just build up the community together. When I lost my job earlier in the year, community came behind me.

This is me in a virtual studio. I have Unity Studios sometimes, and these were all the gift subs and cheers. I got, it blew my mind. I cried on stream. The support from the community because I lost my job was just phenomenal. So it's a really caring community. There's a couple of links here. You can come check out my company team, VMware Tanzi.

We're very new. We're building stuff. We've got some chat shows, lots of Kubernetes, spring. net, the whole lot. There's software and game development category, and then there's the live coders. I'm a member of the Live Coders team. There's like 150 odd coders on there. And with that, I'd like to say thank you.

You can connect with me on my email here. I'll share you a link to these slides in the Discord. In a moment, you can find me on Twitch at Layla Codeset. If you have any questions about getting started streaming, just ping me on Twitter at Layla codeset. My dms are open and I'm very happy to help so much for your.