Relax to Code

I’ve recently found that code-related tutorials and discussions provide far better background sound while programming than the music I used to listen to.

Enter the “Soothing Sounds of Coding” playlist:

That’s a YouTube playlist of coding tutorials, discussions, reviews, etc. Basically, anything code related and spanning the gamut of tech from assembly language coding on Commodore 64 to music programming using Pure Data.

EmacsRocks provides the base experience I was looking for. The levels are nicely balanced (no sharp drops or harsh clipping), pacing and vocals are generally relaxed and keyboard sounds exist in abundance. The rest of the playlist is an attempt to follow suit; code-related content with balanced audio that works great for background sound.

Why?

There are a few benefits I saw to this:

• Very relaxing aesthetic to program to since it’s all programming related.
• Code related content can provide a way to learn something new while coding.
• Draws attention to lesser known channels with good content.

I hope others find it as helpful as I do. Feel free to share your thoughts in comments. Cheers!

Future of books?

So here’s an interesting attempt at creating the books of the future: https://bubbl.in/

The project focuses on using code for pages. Book authors are provided with a programmer’s editor where they can create the content using standard HTML, CSS and JavaScript. As a coder, I really like the idea and see the potential behind it.

Here’s an example of what’s possible so far: The Solar System by Marvin Danig

It’s free!

It’s tough to beat a free price tag. So competition will likely struggle against this one, especially since authors won’t necessarily have to market their books as the site itself is a sort of storefront.

It’s certainly innovative and has a lot of factors already accounted for to yield interest. There’s also a fair bit of good response from the hackernews community too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9861740

We’ll see how it goes from here.