Think it is a problem but every other resource in game development is summarized, organized and bookish.
Handmade Hero is unique in that it is:
- Real time, watching a dude program a game
- He speaks his though process, stumbles, gets up and resolves issues
- Community interaction as they progress through the game
All, at the expense of content bloat. I think its popularity has spoken for itself in that Handmade Hero is a totally unique form of education.
The game is still actively in development. It isn't just a clone of some other game, it's a new game and the actual design of the game is another part of the project that's evolving as the engine is built.
To be honest, I think this is the primary weakness of Handmade Hero. Casey is plainly a more talented programmer than designer, and his missteps in the latter domain felt to me more like wasted time than valuable experience. This is why I stopped watching somewhere between episode 200 and 300.
Backtracking, experimenting, and changing your mind is part of the game development process. No game ever ends up being exactly what the designers imagined at the start.