A year or two ago, I watched notch stream coding for a weekend game competition, and it was fascinating. It was on the front page of HN for a while. I ended up watching it for a couple of hours while I did some low-cognition tasks. I think the appealing aspects for me were:
* Seeing someone else's desktop and windowing habits
* Watching for new keyboard shortcuts
* Seeing workflows similar to mine in different IDEs and languages
* Seeing workflows in domains I'm unfamiliar with, like collision detection
* Finding someone's taste in music
Much of what I learned about programming was absorbing habits and handed-down knowledge from coworkers. Live streaming lets you get that without the necessity of making friends or getting hired somewhere. Sitting at someone's desk and working with them is an experience I have to describe as intimate.
I really enjoyed watching Notch code (not all coders are so entertaining!) I wrote a blog post about it a few years ago: http://www.mrspeaker.net/2011/09/15/code-like-youre-notch/
It inspired me to get into game dev, which I'm still doing (for fun) now!
Here is a twitchtv of Notch coding Ludum Dare 28, a complete WebGL and Typescript engine and the final game - he made it seem easy - Notch is a great teacher.
For anyone interested twitch.tv (live streaming website) has a section for programming[1]. Twitch archives all past videos so be sure to check those out as well.
The game development section often has good programming related content as well.
