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Ask HN: Does anyone actually code at a hackathon?

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Re: Ask HN: Does anyone actually code at a hackathon?

#41

Post by ams1 »

JBerlinsky wrote: post #27

Were you at the NYTimes Open Hackday? My teammate and I flew in from Michigan (to be fair, I'm originally from the Tri-State area) to participate, and we damn well weren't just there for networking. That having been said, the networking is incredible. I participated in a Yahoo! Hack U event up here in the great white north, and landed a job this summer out of it (and an offer from Yahoo, which I wound up turning down…

I was also at the TimesOpen Hack day, and spent most of the day coding. There was a lot of chatter there, though (some of it contributed to what my app eventually became). Bring headphones for when you need to start building. Thankfully no one there presented deckware.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone actually code at a hackathon?

#42

Post by danw »

Can't say I've had this problem at any of the UK hackdays I frequently attend, only the US ones I've been to.

I think one of the differences is having an overnight. The networkers and loiterers bugger off after a few hours leaving just the developers and designers overnight who want to actually make interesting things.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone actually code at a hackathon?

#43

Post by iqster »

jorgeortiz85 wrote: post #19

Hey isqster, I'm Jorge and I work as a software engineer at Foursquare. I'm sorry to hear that you're frustrated at our hackathon. Certainly some people are chatting and socializing, but that's only natural when you put a lot of people in the same room. From what I can tell though, the vast majority of people are actually building something today. Some people have brought projects that they started before today, but…

Jorge ... thanks for your note. And I want to thank Foursquare for organizing the event. You guys didn't charge to let people in (unlike some other events), provided free food the entire day and were very helpful in answering questions. My main goal was to learn to use your API and I did. I appreciate this a lot!

My frustration wasn't directed solely at the Foursquare hackathon. Like I said ... I've seen this happen at a number of other events I've participated in. Clearly, since the hackathon isn't over yet, I cannot speak to the apps written by the participants (in the original post, I was referring to past events organized by others). Clearly some amazing coders are going to show great apps they've built in a short period of time. My intent is not to belittle that effort.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone actually code at a hackathon?

#45

Post by donohoe »

JBerlinsky wrote: post #28
donohoe wrote: post #14

I share your frustration. I think many of the trendier companies have a tendency for it to end up being networking and also about being seen at so-and-so's hackathon. It's a 'scene' for many ppl who wanna be 'hackers' but really are not. My biggest pet-peeve at hackathons are those who turn up with full working hacks they did prior. Nothing wrong with that but please have the courtesy to not enter them into the compe…

I actually feel like your event (NYTimes Hackday in December) was pretty good along those lines; I didn't get the feeling that any of the applications had a significant amount of pre-writing code-wise.

Glad you enjoyed it. We should be doing it again this year too.

There were a couple with projects that were written a week+ prior but we factored that into the conversation when giving out prizes.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone actually code at a hackathon?

#46

Post by danw »

thehodge wrote: post #3

as someone who regularly competes in hack days and has won a few, there is nothing more annoying than having someone come in for a few hours, add a new feature to an already developed product then enter the whole thing in as a hack, a lot of the time the Judges don't know and it just promotes the tactic to other people...

I noticed Leeds Hack solve this by the judges going around all the teams in the morning and having a friendly chat about the hacks being made. Gives them a chance to better understand the hacks as hackers aren't always good presenters and they get to directly ask "Which bits of this did you write today?".

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone actually code at a hackathon?

#47

Post by rdl »

I have a hard time actually hacking at such events, but I've seen great development work happen in a slightly different context --

I think the ideal format is a pair of events, separated by a week or two. At the first, you present some cool new technology (a new sensor, embedded platform, api, etc.). You show some examples of how it works. People get together and discuss, form teams, etc. Then, during the next week or couple of weeks, they get together in person at other locations, or collaborate online, to develop stuff. Then, there's another big public meeting, where successful projects can be demonstrated. Best of both worlds. Maybe at the second session people can beta test, give feedback, etc.

(I'm actually at SuperHappyDevHouse 42 in San Jose right now; learning more about Intel TXT in a corner with my laptop, while other people play board games and socialize...)

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone actually code at a hackathon?

#48

Post by Firehed »

rdl wrote: post #47

I have a hard time actually hacking at such events, but I've seen great development work happen in a slightly different context -- I think the ideal format is a pair of events, separated by a week or two. At the first, you present some cool new technology (a new sensor, embedded platform, api, etc.). You show some examples of how it works. People get together and discuss, form teams, etc. Then, during the next week o…

I'm at SHDH as well (hi!). There's definitely a mix here, but I think part of that is because of the venue. The only reason I'm on HN right now is that I'm waiting for a screen scraper to finish, which is terribly slow on the wifi here. I was hacking until my battery died, at which point I decided to explore and mingle a bit until an outlet opened up. At past events, it was a similar mix - certainly not 24 hours of pure coding, but it's an environment where I can hack away on stuff I've been putting off for a while and still enjoy myself. YMMV.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone actually code at a hackathon?

#49

Post by hydrazine »

I was at a Zynga Hackathon at Berkeley a year ago. I suppose it's true a good amount of networking goes on, but that didn't bother me too much. I was really there just to hack something together overnight, and my team actually moved to a separate location so we wouldn't be disturbed. So overall it was a pretty good experience despite what other teams were doing. Hope you also feel this way in the future!

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone actually code at a hackathon?

#50

Post by dwc »

dons wrote: post #32
dwc wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you ever attend an OpenBSD hackathon? I'm just curious.

No, was a bit hard to make it to .ca from .au. However, they did inspire the structure of the Haskell ones.

If you're getting a lot of code out of it then you're doing a fine job.
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