1000 Subscribers! 🚀 WHY I Started this Channel and WHAT'S NEXT

Key Takeaways

last weekend my channel surpassed the thousand subscriber milestones i started this channel three months ago and i honestly didn't expect it to happen so soon this is absolutely amazing and thank you so much for all your comments and for your support i think this is a good moment to talk about why i started this channel and what my plans are personally i value transparency and i think it's only fair to share these things with you so you know what you can expect from me but also you can let me know what you'd like to see here in the future i'm not going to talk about software design today so if you're only interested in that part you can skip this video if you're still here let's talk about why i started this channel if you look around on youtube reddit or the internet in general you notice that there are millions of programming courses and tutorials most of them focus on the basics learn python in one hour the basics of react web development that kind of stuff don't get me wrong those are very useful and it's great that there's so much material out there for free i mean software developers are in high demand everywhere it's a great field to get involved in it's awesome that all this information is readily available to so many people but what if you already know how to program where do you go then there are lots of more advanced tutorials blogs videos that explain how to do particular things how to create a program that reads messages using the discord api or a tutorial explaining how to train a neural network in python and those are also useful they provide recipes that solve a particular problem for you in the long term though those things are not going to turn you into a better software developer because they don't focus on the why of things why are we setting up software systems the way we do what are the alternatives and what are the consequences of doing it differently how do you grow your mindset as a software developer so you come up with good solutions more consistently i want to create a place where we do focus on the why where we can share our ideas have discussions learn from each other i believe that if you know the basics of programming and it doesn't matter what programming language whether that's python javascript ce or something else if you want to become a better software developer then recipes won't help you you need to focus on understanding why because once you begin understanding that you start recognizing patterns everywhere and when you identify those patterns they allow you to make better decisions and write better software as a result that doesn't mean i only talk about theory and philosophy of computer science here on the contrary i want to link back those ideas to the real world for example i could make a whole video series about how to create a back-end api dealing with authentication security database integration software design testing deployment but with a focus on understanding why those things are set up that particular way and what the alternatives are i have three personal reasons for starting this channel first i've been teaching computer science at the university for a long time i enjoy doing that but this youtube channel allows me to experiment with different content formats and structures i can't do those things as easily in a university course where i'm limited to particular topics there are time constraints fixed processes i have to follow and lots of other people that are involved the second reason is that by making videos my content is available for more people than just my students who pay their tuition fee i live in the netherlands and so i'm very privileged in terms of education jobs that are available and the living standard in general and there are many places in the world that don't offer those opportunities and by putting this content on youtube freely accessible to everyone perhaps it helps even if that's just a tiny little bit my final reason for starting this channel is that it's just really a lot of fun i'm learning so much about video production editing storytelling marketing etc also i'm thoroughly enjoying the feedback i get from you guys and i'm learning a lot myself about software development and design along the way i'd also like to be open about money with you i'm not doing this to earn money or to become rich quick or something i own a software company that provides me with the income i need to support my family but the reality is that creating these videos is not free you need camera equipment subscriptions to various services administration and all that stuff just adds up so eventually i will enable monetization of my videos on youtube and investigate other possibilities to generate some income that will also allow me to invest it back into this channel so i can keep making these videos i do have rules for myself on how far i want to go with this first this is not a product review channel and i'm not going to turn it into one second i don't want monetization to impose any limits on the community we're creating perhaps i'll offer paid products or services at some point but those will always be separate optional things the community comes first and it must remain open and free with that out of the way let me share my plans for the future with you first i'm gonna keep publishing one video a week every friday i have lots of ideas including a really cool one that you'll see in a few weeks i won't spoil anything but it involves ms-dos emulation then there's something i'm struggling with i haven't decided what the best way forward is so i'd like to know what your thoughts are at the moment most of my videos have python examples i'm not married to python in any way in fact most of the things i talk about such as design patterns and principles can be applied to almost any language except maybe haskell at my company i mostly do web development using typescript node.js react etc so i'm wondering to what extent i should stick to python in my videos i mean i will continue doing python videos but i could also do a separate series about web development and talk about software design using react and typescript however perhaps you're more interested in python stuff let me know what you prefer should i stick with python or should i broaden my topic list to also include web development with react and typescript i also noticed that the youtube comment section has its limitations i mean it's great for reading what you think about a particular video or hearing your suggestions in general but sometimes i'd like to answer a question with a code snippet or a screenshot or something like that and it's just not practical also it's not really a good place to have longer more in-depth discussions especially if the topic transcends a particular video so this week i've created a discord server which will hopefully help us become a closer community i'll be online there regularly we can talk about software design and development help each other become better at what we do there's an invite link in the description below i hope you join me there so we can hang out and have a good time finally a slightly longer term thing is that i'm considering doing live streams here on youtube i think it would be nice to have regular live sessions together where i can answer any questions you might have let me know in the comments if that's something you'd be interested in i'll also post a poll on discord thank you so much for your support and all your positive feedback this is such an incredible motivator for me and it gives me so much energy let's build a community together and help each other become a bunch of kick-ass software developers next week i'll be back with a regular video about software design thanks for watching take care and hopefully talk to you on discord