PaulieScanlon
commented
3 years ago The First Test - 14-03-2021
On Friday night myself Scott and Rich attempted to do a stream of the wp-demo tutorial. It wasn't a fair test IMO because we were all drunk and cocking about but... Two point Rich made are.
1 . The way the stream works in terms of who goes next and what they'll be doing wasn't clear
- It might be better for each step to be available on a branch.
E.g
Person A goes first and pulls the main branch. They follow the tutorial up until the end of step 1. When person B is chosen they can pull branch steps/step-1 meaning they'll start from wherever the previous person left off. We do this until all steps are completed. All steps will have already been completed by my and made available on branches.
It was always my intention that whoever is coding wouldn't be required to talk while they do it. They would be sharing their screen but "we" the other members on the stream can be discussing the things that we're seeing from the screen share.
It was clear from Friday that if you're trying to talk and code mistakes are made then you waste time trying to debug something that does actually work if you follow the steps in the tutorial.
Other areas which might need to be added are an assessment / discussion after each step has been completed.
Although i have detailed the "result" of each step it wasn't clear to whoever was following the tutorial because they hadn't read that bit so assumed that the step was either broken or didn't work.
I've had this idea for creating a different kind of instructional video. Instead of it being one person on stream sharing their code with their face in a little box in the corner and talking through how to do something I'd like to experiment with multiple people (maybe five) on stream following a set of predefined steps in a demo repo which can be cloned and has an eventual end goal.
I'll need someone to host the stream, they may or may not want to take part in the actual coding, depends how much attention is required when hosting a stream... i don't know because i've never done it and don't have the gear to do it.
To start l'll "spin a wheel" and randomly choose someone to go first. They'll share their screen and attempt to follow the the first step in the tutorial. The steps will be outlined in the cloned repos README. I'll be on hand to answer questions as will everyone else on stream.
After the first person has completed step one i'll spin the wheel again to determine who goes next. I imagine that the last person to go will have an easier time as they'll have seen four people go beforehand, however they might be the first to go on step two of the tutorial.
Depending on the topic for the tutorial will determine who is on stream. The first one i have in mind is for how to setup WPGraphQL / WordPress and Gatsby. The end goal is a simple Gatsby site with a few pages and navigation links. It would be great to invite anyone from anywhere in the world with any level of skill to join as this will add to vibe. It will most likely unearth more questions from those who aren't as familiar with the technology and ultimately will help in filling in the gaps i've mostly likely missed because i am familiar with the technology. I can then retrospectively amend the README to cover off any new questions that come up.
It's called "Pauls Rubbish Video" for a reason.
I don't want it to be a perfectly polished instructional video / stream / show because they already exist and quite frankly i find them boring. When i recently attempted to record an instructional video the mistakes and mishaps were the best bits. E.g on the one good take i had you can hear my neighbour upstairs singing Old McDonald had a farm to her two year old daughter. This got me to thinking about the best bits from our Natterpops chats, personally i love it when Rich's kids come in and cause chaos and we sit back and watch him be "Daddy" and tell them to go brush their teeth, or when Ola is in the other room and we can hear him laughing on Benedicte's mic, or when Scott just walks off and plays with his cat.
These are the warts and all bits that you never see on instructional videos but it's what gives our Natterpops chats a human touch. I also personally think we're stronger together and all our personalities make Natterpops what it is.
I'm not sure if this format will work or if anyone will be interested in participating or will even watch live but it's worth a go just to see what happens.
I was also thinking that it might be kinda interesting for whoever is hosting or writing the tutorial to be able to add it to their collection of streams / videos.
So the "brand idea" if you like can transcend me (replace Paul with Bob e.g Bobs Rubbish Video). It'll be x person one week and y person another week but the idea is always the same:
A bunch of people trying to do something that someone else has written
it's kind of like a franchise. The rules are the same but everything else changes.
If you have any thoughts pop them in the comments and we'll see how it goes. I'd actually like to try this tonight on Natterpops. i know it's short notice but.. that's even better. It'll almost definitely be a car crash but should at least help determine if the idea can even work or if it'll need some refining or scrapping altogether.
I have a demo repo with tutorial steps all ready to be cloned here so if you're available (we don't have to stream it) i'd love be to be able to test the water tonight.
Ty
Paul