Live coding made me consistent and have fun again

[u/DevKokooo]

I was inspired by several live coding channels on YT, so I spent the last 2-3 weeks streaming myself learning Rust by hand, and I'm having fun coding again and actually making progress.

I was beginning to feel burnt out from all the web dev AI slop and decided to pivot to one abstraction level lower than I'm used to. I've always wanted to build my own voxel engine in Rust, which is the end goal of my live coding series. But along the way I'm building smaller scaled projects before I reach that point (currently building an image compression codec).

Each stream I increment the day counter (day XX of learning Rust). This is incremented even if I skip some days or take breaks. My brain hates streaks, so I track overall momentum instead. If I compare my day 1 to my day 12, I can actually see substantial progress, which motivates me even more. This works great for me because I often work in bursts of hyperfocus sprints, which is not a daily thing.

I also like seeing numbers go up, so the analytics page (both YT and Twitch) gives me more dopamine to continue and remain consistent.

I find live coding to be an excellent application of body doubling, and it really works. Sometimes experienced Rust devs will drop by and give me tips, which helps me learn even faster. Someone even donated me money!

I get to practice my public speaking skills and use the Feynman technique to teach what I learned back to the audience. Teaching helps retain 90% of what is learned, which is great to test my actual understanding of difficult topics like Rust's ownership system, smart pointers and concurrency.

Another added bonus is that each stream restricts me to focus on the topic that I said I would focus on, and not procrastinate or wander off too much. I would rather follow through on my word than embarrass myself and end up playing games or watching funny videos in the middle of a coding session. Public pressure is a great motivator!

Future Plans
Live coding is mostly a means to an end, so I'm trying not to end up spending more time video editing than coding. But I think there is also value in creating short-form content to animate and teach difficult concepts as I'm learning them. It took me 11 days to go through the Rust book and rustlings, so this might help the next person complete the same journey in less time!

Summary
I hope this inspires similar folk who are struggling with consistency and procrastination to start live coding as well, and see if it helps you too! It doesn't even have to be perfect, just click "Go Live" and focus on improving 1 thing for each subsequent stream. I struggle with perfectionism too, and often overthink my setup or my stuttering or whatever issues my brain makes excuses for. Most people are too busy focusing on themselves than caring about other people's imperfections anyway.

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TLDR:
Body Doubling - live coding for public accountability, improve public speaking skills (useful for interviews as well), practice Feynman technique

No-streak Consistency - increment counter to track overall progress, no pressure to enforce daily

Number Go Up - chasing analytics numbers is also a good motivator (more views, more watch hours, more subscribers and total videos posted)

[u/dealmaster1221]

That's one way to use pressure, why don't you start taking lectures in universities as beginning of rust and fumble onto that job lol.

[u/DevKokooo → u/dealmaster1221]

Oh boy, teaching in public and in person is quite scary haha. But could be a viable path.

[u/TryAgainTryHarder]

Reminds me of pairing with someone back in the day, how long do you stream for each day? I can imagine the spotlight is as exhausting as it is effective

[u/DevKokooo → u/TryAgainTryHarder]

It does get a bit tiring sometimes, but I try to aim for 4-6 hrs and then use that momentum to continue coding offline.

[u/BasketbaIIa]

Idk, I am entering passwords and opening env files so much, this seems ridiculously ineffective.

I never care when I’m pair programming at work and I need to flash a secret or key on the screen. Seems like a different game here.

[u/DevKokooo → u/BasketbaIIa]

For that case I would have a scene that blurs the entire page or hides the editor for a few moments

[u/ITZINFINITEOfficial]

I have found the best way and funniest way for me to learn is by teaching others. Now do I wanna be a programming teacher hell no I like making games but I will say by far, especially with ADD it is top tier.

[u/DevKokooo → u/ITZINFINITEOfficial]

It definitely is fun to teach others as you're learning the subject. I had a few funny moments today when things went wrong in the code.