Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Hackathons feel fake now

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 140 posts

Re: Ask HN: Hackathons feel fake now

#81

Post by al_borland »

spudlyo wrote: post #77

One company I worked for had a culture of semi-regular hackathons and are they were often a lot of fun. As an old, I got to work with some non-jaded wide-eyed interns from U of Waterloo who worked their asses off on inspired hackathon projects as well as doing some solid work for our team. Interns had plenty of motivation to make a splash (and to take chances) and working with them was often a breath of fresh air. On…

These sound pretty productive, which is nice. I’d love for me team to have hackathons weeks to fix annoying stuff.

My company puts on an internal hackathons, but it feels fake. Looking at the winners, it seemed like a team had been working on the project for months, and the hackathon was the company’s way of marketing it internally before launch.

There is precedence for this kind of action, which is why I’m skeptical of the legitimacy of the hackathons. There was a video contest and the top 3 were shown at a town hall. My team was one of the top 3. I had never seen the video and had no idea about this contest, nor had my boss (Sr Dir), nor had his boss (VP). As far as we could tell, some video production team was tapped to hack together a video in 30 minutes, they threw our name on it, and shipped it. I don’t trust much after that.

Re: Ask HN: Hackathons feel fake now

#83

Post by faizmokh »

The first time I went to a hackathon early in my career, the team that won doesn't even have a working product. It's just a screenshots of a multiple websites that was stitched together to visualize what the product will be. Kinda bullshit but the presenter was very well spoken.

I've never been to a hackathon ever since then.

Re: Ask HN: Hackathons feel fake now

#84

Post by devsda »

kevinsync wrote: post #34

When I was salaried, I never participated in company-sponsored hackathons and actively resisted attending any conferences or anything of the sort. Even back in late 00's / early 2010's it all felt like sponsorship hell, and my point of reference for the activities was nigh-impossible to recreate.. When I was a teenager in the mid-90's, I would go to a monthly Boy Scouts Explorer Post group hosted/sponsored by CompuSe…

> participated in company-sponsored hackathons

Company sponsored hackathons are better if you have a large one that works on diverse fields and products.

Usually org-wide hackathons within a company are plain nonsense and soul sucking. Participation will be voluntary but "strongly recommended". Collecting "ideas" is mostly picking off stories from JIRA.

We just call it a two/three day sprint.

Re: Ask HN: Hackathons feel fake now

#85

Post by sublinear »

gyomu wrote: post #54

When I was in college (over 20 years ago now), what we called “hackathons” was a bunch of us (4-6 max) holing up in an apartment for the weekend, and working on our personal projects while ordering pizza and sleeping on couches. It was really nice having a group of people you could demo what you were working on/ask for help or feedback within immediate range at all times. There was also something really peaceful abou…

I... I'm about to hit 40 in a couple of years, and I still pull all nighters on the couch when I'm deep into my weekend hobby projects.

Not to be overly sentimental, but for me the 5am feeling is still the same if not better with family and pets around and the sunrise view I created for myself.

Re: Ask HN: Hackathons feel fake now

#86

Post by sepidy »

moralestapia wrote: post #65

It's because they truly are fake. I've been to several of them in Toronto, this year and last. Teams nowadays just `git clone` some repo, put in some crappy logo and then say "I made this", and they mean it. This is a general trend I've observed to be prevalent with zoomers (but not Gen Alpha), they just lie to others as if it was nothing. No idea what are the social cues that led them to this, but I would find that…

That's sad, and it's even more sad because I can completely observe where this is coming from and what causes this -_-

Things are way different in IRL SF than what I used to observe from distance.

Re: Ask HN: Hackathons feel fake now

#87

Post by spudlyo »

al_borland wrote: post #81
spudlyo wrote: post #77

One company I worked for had a culture of semi-regular hackathons and are they were often a lot of fun. As an old, I got to work with some non-jaded wide-eyed interns from U of Waterloo who worked their asses off on inspired hackathon projects as well as doing some solid work for our team. Interns had plenty of motivation to make a splash (and to take chances) and working with them was often a breath of fresh air. On…

These sound pretty productive, which is nice. I’d love for me team to have hackathons weeks to fix annoying stuff. My company puts on an internal hackathons, but it feels fake. Looking at the winners, it seemed like a team had been working on the project for months, and the hackathon was the company’s way of marketing it internally before launch. There is precedence for this kind of action, which is why I’m skeptical…

It sounds like there is a department of propaganda at your company. CARTHAGO DELENDA EST.

It's worth noting that this was a bottom-up initiative, and management got on board after it was shown to be successful and morale boosting. ICs can lead themselves sometimes.

Re: Ask HN: Hackathons feel fake now

#88

Post by esafak »

aiforecastthway wrote: post #57
krrishd wrote: post #4

I mostly agree with the premise, but to point out something kinda funny: these complaints are basically identical to the ones I remember from a time I personally remember as the "heyday" of hackathons (early/mid 2010s). I think: - they've had this degree of fakeness for almost the entirety of their existence (as long as they've needed "sponsorship" / been 6+ figure events) - at its best, there also was a scene/subcul…

I have never heard the term "Hackathon" used in any context other than a recruiting/sales event targeted at early-career types. Meatspace get-togethers focused on hacking, either for a specific project or for a clique, never used the term "Hackathon". At least in my circles. Those were just "get togethers" or maybe "hacking weekends". But with small caps. I.e., not "Hacking Weekends" or "Hackathons", but "a weekend w…

I went to a hackathon for teenage girls in an SF library once. No corporate presence.

Re: Ask HN: Hackathons feel fake now

#89

Post by colechristensen »

sublinear wrote: post #85
gyomu wrote: post #54

When I was in college (over 20 years ago now), what we called “hackathons” was a bunch of us (4-6 max) holing up in an apartment for the weekend, and working on our personal projects while ordering pizza and sleeping on couches. It was really nice having a group of people you could demo what you were working on/ask for help or feedback within immediate range at all times. There was also something really peaceful abou…

I... I'm about to hit 40 in a couple of years, and I still pull all nighters on the couch when I'm deep into my weekend hobby projects. Not to be overly sentimental, but for me the 5am feeling is still the same if not better with family and pets around and the sunrise view I created for myself.

I find that I still can do the all nighters but much like the festive overconsumption of alcohol, the recovery time tripled and made the whole thing very much not worth it (except maybe on very rare occasions).

Sure I can stay up all night but it really just ruins the entire next week.

Re: Ask HN: Hackathons feel fake now

#90

Post by applied_heat »

colechristensen wrote: post #89
sublinear wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I... I'm about to hit 40 in a couple of years, and I still pull all nighters on the couch when I'm deep into my weekend hobby projects. Not to be overly sentimental, but for me the 5am feeling is still the same if not better with family and pets around and the sunrise view I created for myself.

I find that I still can do the all nighters but much like the festive overconsumption of alcohol, the recovery time tripled and made the whole thing very much not worth it (except maybe on very rare occasions). Sure I can stay up all night but it really just ruins the entire next week.

I swore them off after my last one. Mid 40s. All nighters used to be a source of joy though to get what felt like days worth of work done in a single sitting enabled by the absence of distractions
Post reply on HN