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Ask HN: The rising “Hackathon Hackers” culture

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Re: Ask HN: The rising “Hackathon Hackers” culture

#141

Post by caseysoftware »

argonaut wrote: post #97
aroman wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a member of the team that "won" that hackathon, I agree. Interestingly, one of my least-favorite parts about "doing well" at hackathons like these is that I don't get the opportunity to go around to other tables and see what everyone has else made, and talk with them about it. Sometimes, really cool projects and people go under-noticed (I've been there as well).

But would you go to a hackathon with no prizes?

In the last year here (Austin), I've hosted a half dozen hackathons with no prizes.. not even silly prizes. It takes minimal effort getting 40-50 people, and some effort to get 100. On the other side, our last major social good hackathon (Hack for Change) had nearly 250 with no prizes announced up front.

(We did award SXSW 2015 badges to the "audience favorite" but that was a surprise at the tail end of the demo time.)

Re: Ask HN: The rising “Hackathon Hackers” culture

#142

Post by TeMPOraL »

caligastia wrote: post #140

Hacker culture is dangerous. We are living in a technological Cambrian explosion, and it is certainly very exciting to see the many types of hardware, software, and techniques that have emerged in a few short years. The power that can be wielded by tying together a few components is enormous. Unfortunately the 'Hacker Way' is to glue components together and declare success if the whole thing 'works'. The glue is norm…

I have mixed feelings about this.

On the one hand, I agree with the energy-efficiency issues, and the amounts of waste in current products annoy me. It got so bad that people honestly think routing data around the world to do something that should be done via a local network is a good idea. I wouldn't pick on Facebook that much though, it has a clear social benefit - they hit a sweet spot in terms of interpersonal communication, as witnessed by the adoption it has. I know I derive tons of value from Facebook and can hardly imagine switching to something else now.

On the other hand, the thing I disagree with is calling it the hacker culture. Let's be clear about what group of people you're complaining about - it's not the culture of skilled, playful people - it's the hipster/startup variant of "hacker culture", taking a bunch of APIs for cat pictures, gluing them together with the most trendy JS framework that happens to be totally overcomplicated for the task at hand, and calling yourself the master of the world. The guy with Raspberry Pi is probably the only actual hacker in your entire comment.

Also remember that programming went mainstream some time ago, and most of the programmers that are employed are not hackers.

Hacker culture is fine. Hipster culture is dangerous.

Re: Ask HN: The rising “Hackathon Hackers” culture

#143

Post by TeMPOraL »

jcoffland wrote: post #63
richardjordan wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a key part of the question though is the fact that it didn't used to be just entry level devs and college students at hackathons.

No? Most serious programmers are too busy programming to have time to blow on a hackathon.

Well, it depends on hackaton. Most of the hackatons now are commercial events, designed either to milk participants for free work or promote some third party services.

I remeber when hackatons were made by programmers for programmers, when they were about hacking on actually cool projects and having fun. Those hackatons had some serious devs participating, because hell, even if you're doing this professionally, you need to take a break every now and then and do something just for fun.

Re: Ask HN: The rising “Hackathon Hackers” culture

#144

Post by TeMPOraL »

adrusi wrote: post #24
parfe wrote: post #12

1. Get a PAID internship 2. Get a part time job 3. Graduate 4. Get a full time job 5. Do things for fun that don't involve computers. The fact I happen to interact with X framework in Y language, running on Z environment has zero relevence in my life. I more quickly ignore people talking about Ruby/Python/Javascript running Rails/Django/Node than the homeless person trying to wash my windshield. You get too involved…

Some people are genuinely passionate about computing and for them it will always be more than just what they do to feed themselves. There's nothing wrong with this, and nothing wrong with the alternative, so long as you're effective, happy, and don't delude yourself.

I totally second this. For some people (myself included), technology is a genuine interest - hobby first, money source later. It's totally fine - if someone can be into fishing, why I can't be into programming (btw. I sort of lucked myself into my career - when I was learning to code I never knew that this will be a skill in high demand)?

Re: Ask HN: The rising “Hackathon Hackers” culture

#145

Post by rikibro »

fsk wrote: post #123
arfliw wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they had to choose between you and somebody with no programming experience, who do you think they would hire? If they hired you both, do you think you'd get the same salary? Answers are obv: (1) you (2) no - so your skills are not valued at $0.

I've had several recruiters say they'd rather hire a recent college grad than me, even for the same salary, because I didn't have experience in their specific technologies and it'd be easier for the recent grad to learn. So I'm less attractive than a recent grad with no experience, which means my experience has negative value.

Actually, it's a win-win situation. Do you see yourself working at a company where most/all your colleges were hired, not because their experience, but because their age?

He is actually doing you a favor (in general terms, since one need food on the table...), and also protecting his company from frustrated employees (like you would, probably, be), since the young guys are able to endure more BS and bad management.

Re: Ask HN: The rising “Hackathon Hackers” culture

#146

Post by Aradalf »

jmcohen wrote: post #44

Penn's hackathon is by application only. I think this is pretty silly. Here's a quote from a Medium post by one of the event organizers announcing this year's low acceptance rate of 30% [1]: The people that got in had almost all either won major hackathons before or worked on multiple projects that each blew our socks off in a spectacular fashion. I'm just trying to imagine these kids at Penn sitting around a table d…

I've gotten to to PennApps multiple times and the only hackathon I've ever won is a Codeday, so this scenario that you're constructing is blatantly false. I'm assuming they look for people that will attract big sponsors to their hackathon, and the idea makes a lot of sense. Hackathons can't expand indefinitely, and the idea of having some consistency still makes more sense to me than random selection, which leads to situations where you're not accepted to a single hackathon in an entire semester. Unless you have a better idea, perhaps you should not mock this one?

Re: Ask HN: The rising “Hackathon Hackers” culture

#147

Post by fsk »

rikibro wrote: post #145
fsk wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had several recruiters say they'd rather hire a recent college grad than me, even for the same salary, because I didn't have experience in their specific technologies and it'd be easier for the recent grad to learn. So I'm less attractive than a recent grad with no experience, which means my experience has negative value.

Actually, it's a win-win situation. Do you see yourself working at a company where most/all your colleges were hired, not because their experience, but because their age? He is actually doing you a favor (in general terms, since one need food on the table...), and also protecting his company from frustrated employees (like you would, probably, be), since the young guys are able to endure more BS and bad management.

When I see one clueless hiring manager or recruiter, I can easily shrug it off and move on. When I see everyone making the exact same bad decision (your experience is worth zero/negative unless it's exactly the tools we need), then I wonder if I picked the wrong career.

Fortunately, I only need one job, so if 99% of people doing hiring are clueless, I only need to find one who values my experience and ability.

Re: Ask HN: The rising “Hackathon Hackers” culture

#148

Post by fsk »

Pizzalover wrote: post #137
fsk wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had several recruiters say they'd rather hire a recent college grad than me, even for the same salary, because I didn't have experience in their specific technologies and it'd be easier for the recent grad to learn. So I'm less attractive than a recent grad with no experience, which means my experience has negative value.

Recruiters don't know shit

But they are the gatekeepers for getting interviews and jobs. What does it say for the industry when most of the people who are evaluating candidates are computer illiterate?

That leads to stupid stuff like when someone is hiring for MS SQL Server 2014, and they say that experience in MS SQL 2000 or 2008 is worthless.

Re: Ask HN: The rising “Hackathon Hackers” culture

#149

Post by Jason147 »

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Re: Ask HN: The rising “Hackathon Hackers” culture

#150

Post by themusicgod1 »

lazyseq wrote: post #85
r00nk wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey there, one of the young guys here, trying to weasel my way into a job, I have a few questions for you If you don't mind. You said this: More likely I am not impressed because your code is terrible and I am shocked that it took you so many weeks and commits to do what you would be expected to finish in 1 day at our office. I have a github account, and I use it to host a few of my projects. Right now I'm working on…

Let me also add some more specifics for your case: 1. Program whatever you want. Don't go for popularity. If you don't do what you want, then you won't finish. 2. Corollary to the first item, finish what you start. 3. Anyone who judges on stars as an idiot. I will use the sweeping brush. In the same way it's hard to make a hugely successful startup, being good and being popular are two different things. Without namin…

> Don't make a programming language. You probably aren't the guy to do it. There is most likely exactly two people in this world in every generation qualified to do this well and you probably are not one of them.

Know how they got qualified to do this? By actually doing it, and by reading about others who were doing it. Modern language developers have so many shoulders of giants to sit on it's not even funny, but even so; it was only a generation ago that stuff like C didn't exist. Someone had to fill a need with a language.

Same goes for OS's/other stuff.

And sometimes, occasionally your stuff gets useful for other people -- and then they start correcting your mistakes. We are going to need one or two people who are that good at programming language design in 2039 and if it takes 24 years of putzing around and designing languages that don't work to get them there, all the power to them.

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