When your stress level rises while coding
Imagine the following: Your boss wants you to implement a new feature. You’re new in the company and haven’t really familiarized yourself with the source code and the internal processes. You’re sitting in the office of your new colleagues with a question mark above your head. You don’t let your desperation show, because you want to prove that you’re doing a good job. You can’t think of a solution, but you want to make a good first impression. Your eyes wander back and forth between the clock and the computer screen with the 30 open tabs, all of which you need because you want to be well prepared in order to deliver a good result. Your motivation is still high. Yet, it’s already closing time again – by now the third and fourth in a row and you’re still preparing. Your next plan is to ask for help and ask a colleague, but stop!
Get help from other coders
stackstream, ever heard of it?
It’s a live streaming platform for coders. An ecosystem of techies who want to learn from each other and support each other. The platform is for those who want a quick answer to complex coding questions and don’t want to spend a lot of time skipping through a tutorial or a document. Unlike stackoverflow, where you describe your technical problem to the (huge) community there and hope for an answer, on stackstream you can open a room and be matched live with developers who will help you. The answers are interactive, you can ask questions, learn and change your mindset. In the spirit of open source, you do the same for questioners.
Open Source 2.0
From my own experience I know how important it is to get answers to technical problems as quickly as possible. You are sitting in front of a complicated source code and just don’t know what to do. Most of the time it’s really only small things that cause you headaches. Either I use Google or I describe my questions directly in a designated forum and hope for a quick and qualified answer.
Since these are processes that can be endlessly annoying and time-consuming, stackstream provides a much more efficient and at the same time interactive remedy. The principle is based on constant exchange with people who don’t know each other but are like-minded. Because through live streaming it is possible to get other perspectives on your lines of code. This is a big advantage when you can’t see the forest for the trees.
According to the motto “You have problems with your Python code and don’t know what to do? From now on, experienced developers are available to you directly via Livecam.” a very cool tool for the open source market has now been created.
Furthermore, you have the chance to look over the shoulders of others and learn a few tricks here and there. Everybody also gets the chance to compare their progress with others.
This is how the Twitch for coders works
Similar to Twitch, on stackstream you will see numerous sessions on various topics. The difference is that stackstream is only about code.
To watch or listen to other sessions, you don’t even need an account. Only once you want to be active in the chat or in a stream, you need an account. And that’s created within a minute. Once you have an account, you can publish your own content. You also have the possibility to get in contact with other coders via direct message. Because stackstream is very democratic, there is no right or wrong, or inappropriate questions. The goal is to share, learn and help others. If you’re lucky, you’ll even get to meet and interact with recognized IT industry leaders in a live stream.
The cool thing is, stackstream is constantly being developed upon user request. The product grows with the community, because now you and even yours truly have the opportunity to directly contribute to the development of new features.
Google was yesterday. stackstream is today.
So, do you want to sit around alone in front of your computer all your life? What’s the point of googling problems and getting non-specific answers that only approximate your problem? Google or not, but what if you can log on to stackstream and get an answer right away that’s much more satisfying? And get in touch with people in your industry face-to-face?
I would have saved myself a gray hair or two
I wish there had been something like stackstream much earlier. I might have had one less bead of sweat by just quickly starting a webcam session. You can instantly connect with an expert streamer who can give you instant, no-obligation advice, and you can even write your lines of code together and learn as you go. How cool is that? The secret weapon for bad days and thinking blocks.
I’ve been so impressed with the whole thing that I spend my days writing blog articles here and even take an active role in designing stackstream. I hope this blog post inspired you and helps you with future coding challenges!
Your Daniel
