[HN Gopher] Scrollycoding - A new way to write code walkthroughs...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Scrollycoding - A new way to write code walkthroughs [video]
        
       Author : pomber
       Score  : 71 points
       Date   : 2021-03-15 14:29 UTC (8 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.youtube.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.youtube.com)
        
       | dayre wrote:
       | This is really great... i didn't realize how much this was needed
       | until working with the demo.
        
       | michael-ax wrote:
       | Brilliant!
        
       | RobSpectre wrote:
       | This is super tasteful and clean. Well done.
        
       | Lukas_Skywalker wrote:
       | Wonderful! I recently did something similar to teach kids to
       | program a game (in german):
       | https://game.bbz.cloud/topics/04_collisions To get the step-by-
       | step code building, you can add comments to individual lines of
       | example source code to tell them when they should appear (and
       | optionally disappear): https://github.com/bbz-biel-
       | informatik/jsgame/blob/master/04... It currently works for JS,
       | HTML and CSS.
        
         | pomber wrote:
         | I like it!
        
       | matthiaswh wrote:
       | Terrific work! IMO the state of programming tutorials and
       | walkthroughs is surprisingly bad and antiquated. I wrote a
       | concept demo a few years ago with some of the same ideas, but
       | based around the Git diff.[0] The basic idea is each different
       | "step" of the tutorial is a new commit, where the commit message
       | is the instructions and the diff is the change in code.
       | 
       | I discovered there is a big advantage to the reader in being able
       | to reference the entire WIP code base at any given time, as well
       | as seeing what code is removed/replaced, which is easily missed
       | but vitally important when building up an idea incrementally.
       | 
       | Happy to see people putting effort into making better tooling in
       | this space.
       | 
       | [0] https://matthiashager.com/tardis/programming-tutorial-demo
        
         | respondo2134 wrote:
         | I do something similar for our internall Technical Talks. The
         | idea is to make them a smaller, live-coding discussions vs. a
         | presentation, and if you make each commit a logical segment of
         | your talk you provide both integrated instructions for your
         | audience and a safety net to get your live coding back on track
         | when it inevitably goes awry. It's like protection when lead
         | rock climbing; you only fall back to beneath your last
         | checkout.
        
           | pomber wrote:
           | I also have this project http://githistory.xyz/, I want to
           | make a new version of it specific for tutorials, using commit
           | messages or git notes to display a better description of each
           | step.
        
         | pomber wrote:
         | Agree. Nice demo! Good name also.
        
       | pomber wrote:
       | Project: https://github.com/code-hike/codehike
       | 
       | Demo: https://code-hike-scrollycoding-
       | preview.vercel.app/posts/lor...
        
       | ballmerspeak wrote:
       | This is fantastic. I'll be using on a new project and will
       | happily provide feedback.
        
       | Xevi wrote:
       | What about mobile users? It doesn't seem to work for them.
        
         | pomber wrote:
         | Check 6:42 in the video. It works, if there isn't enough screen
         | space it falls back to something more static.
        
       | mrdonbrown wrote:
       | Related, if you want to create a code walkthrough video, I wrote
       | code-video-generator [1]
       | 
       | It uses Manim [2], an animation library commonly used by Math
       | teachers, and adapted it to code walkthroughs. Just comment code
       | as you do and it generates a video for it. I've been using it to
       | generate visuals for youtube videos [3] with some success.
       | 
       | [1] https://github.com/sleuth-io/code-video-generator [2]
       | https://github.com/manimcommunity/manim [3]
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e21hJnB9J5k&t=2s
        
       | anm89 wrote:
       | Woah! This is pretty slick and addresses a real problem. Great
       | work.
        
       | netgusto wrote:
       | Very nice!
       | 
       | Last code post I wrote I became aware of how difficult it is to
       | intertwine explanations and readable code in a way that fist a
       | blog post format. Conforming to the linear structure of a blog
       | post (technical information is often hierarchical) and to the
       | physical width of a blog post on screen proved to be very
       | challenging.
       | 
       | Literate code might help, but it's not a one size fits all
       | solution. It's nice to see your project offers something original
       | in that space.
        
         | pomber wrote:
         | That was the feeling that inspired me to work on this.
         | 
         | A few years ago I blogged [how to build your own react on
         | Medium]( https://engineering.hexacta.com/didact-fiber-
         | incremental-rec...) and the classic blog flow was to limiting.
         | Later I wrote [this version](https://pomb.us/build-your-own-
         | react/) on my blog. The experience was much better for both,
         | reading and writing.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2021-03-15 23:01 UTC)