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Earlier quoted context omitted.
Love your comment! Less hackathons, more open source summits. Build foundations, not garbage to be thrown away.
Not to be too contrarian, but I'm a 45 year old developer whose (basically) only code that is currently in production is what I've made in the last year. Code is generally eventually thrown away, whether it's garbage or not.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not to be too contrarian, but I'm a 45 year old developer whose (basically) only code that is currently in production is what I've made in the last year. Code is generally eventually thrown away, whether it's garbage or not.
I suppose my thesis is hackathons don't promote end results with longevity, versus libraries and other foundational tools. I'm not against throwing code away. I'm just not sold that the results of hackathons provide value.
Attended my first hackathon last month. We built "Spitter". It speaks twitter! You subscribe to someone's twitter account through it and whenever they tweet, you'll get a phone call and an automated voice will read out the tweet to you. Was really cool/creepy the next morning when we started getting calls with a robot reading Trump tweets about Obamacare to us!
https://www.sideprojectors.com
It won second prize sponsored by Freelancer at a local hackathon. That was almost 4 or 5 years ago now. I've improved the site a few times since then and it's still going quite strong! :)
In general hackathons are based on the idea of programming as producing objects/products/services (which all decay over time), rather than seeing programming as the act of codifying understanding of a formal (or informal) system into an executable representation (which its users continue updating to match their mental model for as long as they find it useful). The purpose of many hackathons being "build apps/widgets…
Hackathons are to startups as martial arts tournaments are to the martial arts. You get good at the tournament by training for tournaments. But that's maybe 5% of what it takes to be really good at the overall practice. And in most cases, to get really good at the tournament, you have to do things that are only useful in tournaments and are actually anti-productive in real-life scenarios.
I still do weekend prototyping sessions, especially on my own, and there is a lot of value to that, so long as it's understood to be about learning. But from most of what I've seen about hackathons, that's not why people are being asked to come to them, and that's not why people are there.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not to be too contrarian, but I'm a 45 year old developer whose (basically) only code that is currently in production is what I've made in the last year. Code is generally eventually thrown away, whether it's garbage or not.
That's false... OP gives an example in another comment here.
In general hackathons are based on the idea of programming as producing objects/products/services (which all decay over time), rather than seeing programming as the act of codifying understanding of a formal (or informal) system into an executable representation (which its users continue updating to match their mental model for as long as they find it useful). The purpose of many hackathons being "build apps/widgets…
I really disagree. I've participated in a few hackathons and they are among the best ways to quickly accomplish and learn new things while feeling some of the joy we all ultimately want from programming. Being able in one day or weekend to go from scratch to a working prototype is just a great way to kick yourself into gear and remember what is possible in programming. I've participated in hackathons for embedded dev…
I guess it depends on your experience with hackathons. I entered my first one last year, and it totally ruined them for me. The winning team wrote no code at all and had a powerpoint presentation and mockups using images and image-maps. (I've complained about it more in past comments :P )
It seemed like we were actually punished for trying to code. I asked if we were allowed to set up backend servers on something like DO or AWS, instead of using our laptops for the demo. "Sure, of course that's allowed." Until I got to the venue and found out they were blocking SSH and most other non web-browsing traffic. I had to tether to my cell phone in order to deploy because according to them, it was the venue and not their problem.
I spent a good amount of time helping out people who were using the same framework as us and didn't understand it well (Ionic). So I made some friends and contacts that way. Unfortunately, they all seemed to be really shallow. I haven't heard back from most of them, and of the two I have, one asked me to design their squarespace site for a stupidly low price, and the other cold-called me sometime later asking if I was interested in writing content for their startup ("Oh, no, we're not looking for devs at the moment"). Of course once I declined their offer, no contact, no friendship.
I'd be down to try a different one (the "stupid idea" hackathons seem like the most fun and least competitive), but the only upcoming hackathon in my city is the same one from last year I'm currently complaining about...
The other aspect was location verification. Working with NGOs, you could use this authentication method to let displaced persons login at certified locations. This solves two big issues:
1. Family member tracking. Red Cross and other organisations spend millions of dollars each year tracing where family members ended up. It is quite common for families to be split - reuniting them is a multi-year, labour intensive job. Solving that would do the world a whole lot of good.
2. Journey verification. When assessing refugee visa status, governments spend a lot of time trying to verify what journey a particular person took to get there to prove that they are legitimately a refugee. If a refugee could irrefutably prove their journey, then it would dramatically cut down on visa processing times.
We won that hackathon - I just wish I had time to develop it more. Tried to find who to talk to but the idea of using technology to solve the refugee crisis seems a little outlandish to traditional NGOs who (rightly so) place a lot of emphasis on food and shelter over apps.
Attended my first hackathon last month. We built "Spitter". It speaks twitter! You subscribe to someone's twitter account through it and whenever they tweet, you'll get a phone call and an automated voice will read out the tweet to you. Was really cool/creepy the next morning when we started getting calls with a robot reading Trump tweets about Obamacare to us!
Oh tell me it does voices, according to who's tweeting!