Today I did an impromptu live stream in an effort to reignite my passion for Swift Playgrounds and Swift programming in general. Cutting to the chase — it was a success! Maybe not by the numbers… but I’ll get to why in a second.

Fun & Challenging

I don’t live stream often. It’s something I’ve been curious about and wanted to try to incorporate into my online persona, but part of me fears the “live” part of the live stream. Recording videos gives me structure — I can make sure my code works. I can take my time to think about what I’m doing and troubleshoot problems. Not on a live stream — it’s all happening now.

But I have to say, at least today’s stream was, dare I say, fun.

It was something new trying to create functioning code on the spot while also trying to minimize the dead space (nothing kills a live stream faster than silence amiright?)

Regardless — it was still a huge challenge. The complexity of writing code while maintaining the stream is something else entirely. Really opened my eyes to the skillset that’s required to do this kind of thing professionally. I now definitely envy those that have it!

Success Is A Spectrum

Yes—I did say this stream was a success. Even with the 10 total viewers at a peak of 3 concurrent viewers. Did I hope for more? Sure, but at the same time knowing that few people are watching makes it much easier to make mistakes.

So how can this be a success, when by the numbers, it fails? The reason is that success is a spectrum. Success is what you make it.

Success is defined by the goal you set out to achieve. I did not start this stream with the goal of reaching a large audience, no. The goal of this stream was to push me to get back behind the keyboard. To create again.

The hope was that this single action would ignite that creative fire. That it would be the thing that gets me writing code again.

And it has done just that—i.e. success!

It inspired my next video series on YouTube which will take the prototype from today’s live stream to the next level. It ain’t going to be perfect, but it’s going to be more functional than where it was when the stream ended.

Watch the Stream

If you’re curious about the live stream below. (Oh but before you go – don’t forget to subscribe).