I'm going to use this opportunity to list some relatively unknown yet excellent software dev related channels that I've come across over the years.
* Derek Banas (https://www.youtube.com/user/derekbanas): staggering amount of content on a huge variety of programming topics; tutorial-style; this guy is so productive it scares me sometimes :(
* HandmadeHero (https://www.youtube.com/user/handmadeheroarchive): excellent series by Casey Muratori that explains a huge number of topics related to game dev, gfx programming; has a really long series of videos documenting how he's building an indie game from the ground up i.e. custom engine
Derek has helped me more than once. He was instrumental in wrapping my head around design patterns (and combined with the gang-of-four's and head first I feel like I really learned).
I had no idea that Mark Lewis was on YouTube! He was one of my favorite professors at Trinity and I'm grateful to know he's still at it and reaching others outside of San Antonio.
Yes! Came here to say Derek Banas. Dude is amazing. Genius level, incredible teacher, the guy was made for this. Came out of lurking just to post this.
Sirajology - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWN3xxRkmTPmbKwht9FuE5A - is another interesting one. He moves a bit too quickly for me, but does things like explain machine learning in 5 minutes or how to generate music with systems like Tensorflow.
Glad my channel has helped you guys. I quit my job at Twilio to do this full-time. I'm on a warpath to educate and inspire the shit out of everyone. Human readable link: https://www.youtube.com/c/sirajology (I am Siraj, hi everyone)
Siraj, just watched a few of your video and it's awesome. Can you go a bit slow though? It's way too fast. I am guessing you are of Indian origin, my indian friends are very fast for me as well :-)
Protip: YouTube has a speed setting. Just click the little cogwheel thing and it should be there. I usually use it to bump up slow talks a bit, but I'm assuming it works just as well to slow things down.
Me too. I almost always speed up the video (due to my impatience) on Youtube. I usually find many videos too slow . The downside is that I can't do that in real life, where I want to increase the speed of the speakers at a live conference.
I don't think Siraj's video is too fast. It seems just right for me.
I've run across several of your videos and was surprised by how few views they had, considering the high production quality and engaging style. I guess these things take time. Keep it up and I have no doubt you'll reach critical mass.
Your channel is cool. The videos are short and crisp and gives a basic understanding for totally new topics like machine learning for me in a very short time. Good job.
I love Bisqwit. The software development content is great, but also his overall personality and philosophy really come through in the videos and resonate with me personally. The level of craftsmanship in his videos is far beyond the typical powerpoint slides mixed with live editing. It would take paragraphs to list all the reasons why, just watch them.
I love his videos too, though the fact that he quit working as a developer and got a job as a bus driver makes me worry that our industry is driving away thoughtful, creative craftspeople like him.
It could be that his situation is unique to him, and doesn't generalize at all. But it also seems plausible that the trend toward practices like sprints, stories, and open plan offices that aren't conducive to the kind of deep work that people like Bisqwit do.
It's also entirely possible that the churn and burn approach to development is what is most profitable in most situations, and that deep workers might find themselves relegated to certain niches.
None of that is meant as a knock on agile development, or any other development practices, of course. But I think it's worth stopping to think about what we give up when we dive headlong into the Agile, open office type of workflow. It would be interesting of more teams had the courage to try practices that are definitely not waterfall, but also not Scrum (which is what most shops that call themselves Agile are practicing). Something that values relatively short iterations, but also values the kinds of creativity and deep work that can't easily be broken up into sprints and stories.
Good news - he's just taken another job as a developer :-) He briefly mentioned it in a recent video.
But yeah, his work environment didn't sound great before, and I think he assumed everywhere is a variant of that. Maybe that's true in Finland, but the guy is clearly skilled enough to work at any place he'd choose.
it is amazing to me that this guy earned 20k euros in finland as a developer and went on to be a bus driver where he earned more. He also talked about how he got fired for not handing in weekly reports..Someone with his skills should be able to work anywhere and make a really good living. Anyway, youtube seems like a good way for him to express himself, i hope he will find success.
I just found out about him, and his videos look very interesting, but the way he talks (the timings/accent/stresses) make me completely unable to focus on the content because I keep focusing on the speech. Does anyone else get that?
Bisqwit is awesome. He's the also first person that I thought of when I saw the thread title. His videos are really in-depth technically and they're all interesting projects.
never heard of Bisqwit but checking the channel out now and I see some Star Control 2 videos and that got my attention! That's one of my favorite games ever
I feel bad about fff because I really can't stand MPJ's humor or style of presentation but I know he's a great teacher. One day I'll get over it, but for now I'm just glad he's there to help!
Honestly, the appeal to me of FFF (hands down my favourite programming youtube channel) is his quirky sense of humour. Each to his own. The more quirky someone is the more polarising to their fan-base they are, I suppose.
I do like computerphile, but as a professional developer, vastly too simplified for me. I do send it to none technical friends, as it cuts out the unnecessary details to get the point across in a ELI5 way.
I'm a bit of a David Beazley fanboy and Python lover. I've watched all of his keynotes and lectures at this point and I have yet to find one that wasn't incredibly informative. You can watch the video for whatever the main topic is about, but finish the talk having picked up a wealth of other bits of useful information.
In addition, I have incredible amounts of respect for people that are willing (and capable) to live code what they're teaching. For one of the best examples of how to effectively live code, look no further than when he implemented a concurrent system from scratch at PyCon 2015: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCs5OvhV9S4
I like live coding as well. For example: https://www.twitch.tv/notch/v/38122203 . Notch of Minecraft fame coding a new game from scratch over a period of two days. You get to see what tools they use, what their thought process is and so forth. It's especially good if they know what they're doing, as you can learn when watching it.
Daniel Shiffman (https://www.youtube.com/user/shiffman/): his videos are quite beginner friendly explains whole process of creating classic games like snake or creating art with code like fractal trees.
Can't believe this hasn't been mentioned yet, so I'm gonna throw it out there. Gary Bernhardt of Destroy All Software.
Access to the videos costs $29/month but is well worth it IMO. He covers a very wide range of topics from beginner to advanced. To sum things up in a few words -- his content is focused on a general understanding of computer science and puts concepts, abstractions, and methodologies before any specific program, tool, or programming language.
Hence why they haven't been mentioned. So, does each "Season" require a subscription? That's how that page makes it look. Even if not, a subscription model for static content is a horrible deal.
Nope, all content is available for the one subscription fee.
> Even if not, a subscription model for static content is a horrible deal.
I think it depends on the quality of the content. Not that I'd advocate it, but I don't think there is anything stopping you from paying a one month subscription fee and ripping all of the content from the site either.
I tend to think of it as a donation similar to tipping someone on Twitch. If I'm getting value out of it, which I am, I want him to keep creating content. And I can stop donating whenever I want.
DerbyCon (computer security) - again, couldn't find a dedicated channel but this one has DerbyCon in addition to some others which might be interesting as well - https://www.youtube.com/user/irongeek/playlists
Coding a game engine from scratch, but don't think it's just about games. The techniques covered range from beginner to highly advanced and programmers in any field, at any skill level, can learn a lot. For example, check out the live editing/reloading for C code in Week 5. https://hero.handmade.network/episodes
I'm just going through this right now, and it's pretty amazing. I really like how he develops this prototype,
and just writes the code which actually solves the problem first, then breaks it up to try and reduce repetition only after he sees how it looks uncompressed.
Yep - that was a bit of an eye opener for me. He is a super smart guy but if you saw a snapshot of this game source your first reaction would be to suggest a series of (micro) improvements... He explains this style you mentioned here: https://mollyrocket.com/casey/stream_0019.html
I've been enjoying Jon Blow's (creator of Braid & The Witness) programming language talks and demos. He's making a new programming language for games, and it's very interesting to watch. I think he's even hired a developer to work on the compiler.
Not so much programming techniques or best-practices, but I've really enjoyed watching Computer Science and Math-related lectures on MIT Opencourseware's channel. I highly recommend that one.
If you're trying to re-learn math (and probably going the Khan Academy route) then I highly recommend checking out PatrickJMT's channel. He produces simple, but excellent mathematical videos in a style similar to tutoring (which is how he started doing the videos in the first place). I actually find his style to be much more engaging than Khan (nothing against Khan of course).
+1 for FunFun Function, even though it's mostly about javascript or web development he talks about general development issues in a very charismatic way
I really like the way he provides most simplistic explanations to the algorithm problems. Really helpful if you are preparing for an interview.
If you like physics and want some really good explanations to simple questions, you can check Derek Mueller's channel(Veritasium) on youtube. He is a physicist and has some really good videos. I especially like his video on " Most radioactive places on earth" and a separate video on Chernobyl. Also, check his video on Uranium : Twisting the dragon's tail : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cO57Zm-WNmg
I do not, in fact, have a favorite YT channel for developers. I hate with a fiery passion the recent fad of making everything that is supposed to be text, maybe text with a few pictures into a video. You cannot search a video. You cannot skim a video. You cannot copy and paste code sample from a video. You cannot watch it offline as easily as you can read a page.
Different learning styles... Sometimes a video is far more effective for me than reading docs or posts. Especially if its a new language/framework/concept.
I've been learning Vim recently and no amount of trawling through the docs and tutorials inspired me half as much as Derek Wyatt's videos[1].
It's not that I memorized functions and key mappings by watching videos , but without an engaging demonstration of them in video, I'd have had no clue what the possibilities are to begin with. If I'd just read about it, I'd probably have lost interest.
Often I use videos to get an understanding of the landscape and the possibilities of some subjects, and then turn to documentation and tutorials for a deeper comprehension. For me, videos aren't a replacement for reading.
I created a note-taker app for videos but never had the time to make it into something more useful. They are not transcripts, of course, because those would take a whole lot longer to create. It is hosted on GitHub pages for now.
Just curious - and I am asking anyone here who feels similarly, if someone created a list of these "notes" for a given channel on YouTube, would you be more likely to sit through the videos?
https://www.youtube.com/user/sentdex
sentdex youtube channel is a great collection of videos on python related technologies including
machine learning,
matplotlib,
sklearn,
django,
robotics with rasberrypi,
and much more...!!!!
computerphile isn't really for developers. It's for non-developers to get a glimpse into the world of developers. Everything they explain there is extremely elementary. However, I quite enjoy Bradey's other channels (numberphile, and sixty symbols) as I am not a professional in physics or math.
>computerphile isn't really for developers. It's for non-developers to get a glimpse into the world of developers. Everything they explain there is extremely elementary.
This is true for the most part but there are some videos which are interesting still, like the interviews with Brian Kernighan.
Below are said videos in the order they were published. I don't remember but I think parts of one video might be duplicate from one of the other videos.
These videos are for historical perspective, not for learning, so depending on what you are looking for these might or might not be for you. I think most users of Linux, FreeBSD and other Unix family operating systems will enjoy watching them.
+1 -- This is where I learned to code actually. He has some really nice -long- courses for quite a few languages. When I first started I went through his VB.NET videos -- it's 200 videos, and it starts with something as simple as variables, but by the end you're doing real projects like calculators and simple video games.
Bucky! It has been many years since I saw that name. Made me smile, it is where all my real programming started. I would love to send him something out of gratification.
Brian Will (https://www.youtube.com/user/briantwill/videos). I came into his channel from looking at his Clojure videos, but he has many other videos on other languages, basic (but easily misunderstood) programming concepts, and opinionated and educational videos on general programming paradigms.
It depends on what I am trying to improve on. Currently it is the CMU Database Group https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHnBsf2rH-K7pn09rb3qvkA because I have never taken any DB courses in school and I felt the need to shore up my skills there.
I don't think they have dedicated pages, but searching for the classics Dan Friedman and Gerald Sussman is guaranteed brain tease. The minikanren relational interpreter is still high in my top videos ever, and Sussman watch engineering talk was packed with surprises.
Oh wow! I had the very same idea a few weeks back! Your demos don't seem to be working for me though -- they start for a few seconds and then just stop.
Can we go meta? Youtube is doing a lazy job at making me watch more Youtube.
I receive notifications for certain channels while I'm at work - later at home, I have no idea how to watch "most interesting stuff from the last days" in a easy way. Then I go open channels manually! Come on!
They can easily improve and win the TV and Netflix on the living room... all the creative content is there. Show me some sort of auto generated playlist with the new content from channels I'm subscribed and that are trending.
YouTube is huge. If you just search the videos from the last week and sort by the number of views, there will be lots of stuff from the popular YouTubers that you don't care for, like makeup tutorials, reactions, some 15 year old ranting incoherently.
YouTube main page has recommended videos, which, if you use YouTube regularly, it not bad at all - it learns from your voting and viewing habits.
Simple Programmer (https://www.youtube.com/user/jsonmez): Awesome... A Developers Life Coach. Im a huge fan, I watch every single video and he has helped me in more ways than I can count.
I do Python mostly. For Python there are conferences called PyCon. Type that into youtube search, and you'll find many channels. These are usually grouped per year and/or location. Watch videos there. The videos are not really for beginners, but for intermediate/advanced skill levels.
His series on C# is best I have seen. He also covers other topics and is very good teacher, lot of examples and is not afraid to go low level to explain things.
Confreaks records, broadcasts and covers conferences, talks and presentation relevant to all kinds of developers. Neatly organized in a playlist per event and uploaded reasonably quick I consider their coverage as extremely valuable for someone like me who isn't able or willing to attend all those great conferences and talks that are still very much relevant to me.
Google Chrome Developers (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnUYZLuoy1rq1aVMwx4aTzw), lots of good shows about JavaScript goodness, including some very state of the art stuff (HTTP2 for instance). A few good shows including a live one.
famous gaming youtuber Quill18 also has a side channel called quill18creates, in which he creates various types of games from scratch. His content is pretty cool! I listen to him at 1.5x speed. His channel is really good if you want to get into game development, especially with the Unity engine.
He's also got a Twitch stream (name: quill18). He mostly plays games but there's Patreon-funded content on the programming side now and then as well - the most memorable was probably him writing a simple tower defense game in an hour.
I second this. He does a wonderful job of explaining the stuff for the beginners. He also has some playlists where he didn't cut so you can see him actually doing some mistakes and fixes like you will encounter yourself.
The elephant in the room: it's a channel with introductory courses from CodeBabes, a site with the premise that the videos are presented by scantily clad ladies who undress as the material gets more advanced.
But my actual concern is that the presenters have a thick accent and are obviously reading from a script they didn't write themselves. And stupid sex jokes aside, I'm not convinced the educational material is actually any good.
But if you value form over function, I guess this might be interesting.
Mine! Just kidding but I have been thinking of starting one so coming at this from another direction: does anyone have good resources regarding creating a YouTube channel?
Depending on your level, it might be quite basic, but the titles of the videos are simply superb, and each video deals with a concrete topic so it's easy to follow along.
Not coding, VPRO from the Netherlands (English language) has some great "hacker" interest documentaries, e.g. the future of renewable energy, growing vegetables under LEDs or high frequency traders: https://www.youtube.com/user/VPROinternational/videos
Jeorg Sprave is a German guy who makes truly insane catapults, slingshots, bows, cannons, modified Nerf guns, etc and demonstrates their use: https://www.youtube.com/user/JoergSprave/videos
Just thought I'd also mention that he likes to do "case studies" where he reverse engineers effects from different games in Unity using mostly Cg shader code (Ice from Spelunky, Golden Cards from Hearthstone, Bomb explosions from Zelda, etc.)
The team over here is making explainer videos for beginner programmers on things like web application data security, cryptography, and data concurrency.
* Derek Banas (https://www.youtube.com/user/derekbanas): staggering amount of content on a huge variety of programming topics; tutorial-style; this guy is so productive it scares me sometimes :(
* Mark Lewis (https://www.youtube.com/user/DrMarkCLewis): CS professor; lots of videos on general CS, functional programming; focus on Scala
* VoidRealms (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYP0nk48grsMwO3iL8YaAKA): excellent C++-focused content, great Qt series
* mathematicalmonk (https://www.youtube.com/user/mathematicalmonk): great ML and probability videos
* mycodeschool (https://www.youtube.com/user/mycodeschool): general CS, algorithms, data structures
* HandmadeHero (https://www.youtube.com/user/handmadeheroarchive): excellent series by Casey Muratori that explains a huge number of topics related to game dev, gfx programming; has a really long series of videos documenting how he's building an indie game from the ground up i.e. custom engine
I will update once I think of others :)