A few weeks ago I spent a pleasant evening pair programming with my friend Dmitry for his YouTube channel. We worked on a couple of problems in Sentient, which is a language I wrote a few years ago. The first of these videos is here:
In the second video, we tackled the more difficult problem of finding a Knight’s Tour around a chessboard. It still turned out to be pretty easy, though:
A few years ago, I tried to produce screencasts of my own but ended up hating everything I recorded. Perhaps this experience will spur me on to try again.
By the sounds of it, Dmitry had a similar experience. Sitting alone in a darkened room trying to narrate while you code is challenging. Not so much the technical side of it, but its vacuous nature. You have no feedback to guide what you’re doing.
That’s why I think this format works so well. Pair programming is more informal. It’s like the day job. There’s expectation you’ll make mistakes and break off in the middle of sentences. When you do, there’s someone there to pick up the thread.
I genuinely hope you enjoy(ed) the videos. They firmly fit in the category of "try to share more of what you’re doing, tuzz". If you have any questions or comments, add them on YouTube or tweet at me - and/or follow me for more computer-y goodness.