Why do people watch live streams (or their recordings) of people coding?

I feel like I’m really out of the loop here…

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2014-11-15

There’s a proliferation of people streaming their coding – I’ve seen it the most when I follow and participate in the Ludum Dare or with the likes of notch. I get that people may want to know the ‘secret sauce’ of a particular developer… but isn’t it boring to watch someone write text? Isn’t it akin to watching someone handwrite or type a novel?

To me that sounds about as much fun as watching grass grow.

I mean, I see real value in a discussion between the streamer and the viewer in a more lecture-like session, and I see the value in recording a session for voice overs or footage for teaching programming later… but why would anyone want to just tune into a stream like that?

Maybe it’s different for someone just starting to get into programming. Or maybe it’s less that people are tuning into actively watch, but more of a background thing that they can interact with occasionally?

I have no idea…