Streaming Software Development: Accountability, Community, and Learning

TL;DR

This paper explores how live streaming platforms facilitate learning, community building, and accountability among programmers and gamers, highlighting their positive impact on skill development and community engagement.

Contribution

It provides empirical insights from interviews on motivations and perceived skill improvements among programming streamers, extending research on educational live streaming.

Findings

Streamers are motivated by accountability, community, and visibility.

Live streaming positively influences programmers' coding skills.

Streaming serves as an effective alternative learning method.

Abstract

People use the Internet to learn new skills, stay connected with friends, and find new communities to engage with. Live streaming platforms like Twitch.tv, YouTube Live, and Facebook Gaming provide a place where all three of these activities intersect and enable users to live-stream themselves playing a video game or live-coding software and game development, as well as the ability to participate in chat while watching someone else engage in an activity. Through fifteen interviews with software and game development streamers, we investigate why people choose to stream themselves programming and if they perceive themselves improving their programming skills by live streaming. We found that the motivations to stream included accountability, self-education, community, and visibility of the streamers' work, and streamers perceived a positive influence on their ability to write source code. Our findings implicate that alternative learning methods like live streaming programming are a beneficial tool in the age of the virtual classroom. This work also contributes to and extends research efforts surrounding educational live streaming and collaboration in developer communities.