Wanted to ask you about this article, how do you remember the early days of the internet (I was sadly too young at that time). Do you wish it back? And do you think it can ever be like that again? I would be very interested
Wanted to ask you about this article, how do you remember the early days of the internet (I was sadly too young at that time). Do you wish it back? And do you think it can ever be like that again? I would be very interested
I miss written tutorials. I hate how every tutorial is a YouTube now. I don’t want to watch 15 minutes and forget to pay attention for the second that has the detail that I am missing or it just doesn’t show. Even short tutorials are 3 minutes when it could have been a ten second read. I want to skim a page and go directly to the point. Has writing really become that hard to do?
@bstix
And wondering why you need X or Y that doesnt relate to what youre doing only to find out it was a commercial 🙃
@Provider @rhinocratic
@bstix @Provider I’m dyslexic and even I can’t stand these Youtube tutorials. The irony is probably that the script they write to make said tutorial is likely many times more useful than the tutorial itself, just because it’s a video…
@bstix
@Provider @bursaar Agreed! There’s no CTRL+F on a video, either!
@bstix @Provider Trying to copy snippets of code to try / adapt out of the video sucks as well. I often don’t need/want to download an entire sample project from a link in the description.
Plus, given time constraints, I occasionally try to grab a few moments for tutorials while hanging out with family, sitting at a restaurant, or whatever else, so I’d have to watch videos muted as well.
Definitely always look for written form.
@bstix best example ever: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-ZTGpRMU04
The worst are the videos that are little more than a Windows desktop and a syntesized voice of a tutorial that could be written. Additional negative points for instructions writen on Notepad on the screen on that video.
@bstix couldn’t agree more!
Most of my students preferred video, even if with very few exceptions slides + text was better for them (for the stuff we did).
Also *good* video takes forever to make, good text+image tutorials slightly less forever but the search is much easier!
@bstix @Provider @benjiweber
You also can’t “copy and paste” code from their video screen.
@bstix @Provider I’m not sure if it’s my neural divergence, but I actually find YouTube demos/tutorials quite intimidating. I will always pick a written one if I can find it.
@bstix @Provider @gvwilson writing is as hard as it ever was, but monetization of ad-hoc tutorial content is far easier and more lucrative on youtube. People are literally being paid to pollute your search results with video.
I’m actually optimistic; I think eventually youtube will face too much flak for this kind of garbage, it’ll start affecting viewership, they’ll tweak the algorithm or the partner program to punish bad tutorials and there’ll be a renaissance of the written stuff.
@bstix
OMFG this so much. Especially since most tutorials are ponderously slow and tedious. At the other extreme, are the ones with no subtitles and no sound where you are expected to follow a cursor flying around the screen clicking on things and are supposed to understand what happens. Those in particular should die in a fire.
@bstix @Provider God yes. I recently bought a bottle of rum that has a ridiculous ball valve built into the neck so my first attempt to pour it yielded nothing. Googled it & a YT video came up—something ridiculous like 7 minutes or longer—that could have been handled by a single sentence on the label. (Or better yet, not using a ball valve)
@bstix @Provider oh god I hate it when I try to look something up and the only thing I can find is some awkward person going “so uh, you uh, click on this and then, uh, type uh that.” Like why can’t they just type somewhere in a blog or forum or something “type X in a console”?
@bstix everyone wants to be a movie star