16 year old app developer: Plagiarist or Prodigy? • Hacker News Board

Re: 16 year old app developer: Plagiarist or Prodigy?

#131

Post by heedlessly2 » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 8:44 PM UTC

nileshtrivedi wrote: post #125

ender89 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't a hit piece by some bro-grammer who doesn't want to share space with a 16 year old girl, this is a woman who had to carve out space for herself in a male dominated industry. She's looking at the software equivalent of that kid who took a clock slightly apart and put it in a cardboard box and became an engineering prodigy because some idiot thought it looked like a cartoon bomb timer and saying that we need…

The author is a woman.

that's exactly what the person you're responding is saying

Re: 16 year old app developer: Plagiarist or Prodigy?

#132

Post by valuearb » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 9:02 PM UTC

heedlessly2 wrote: post #130

simias wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see where you're coming from but I think the point still stands. Making a fraud the poster child for a cause is worse than having no poster child at all. In general I'm always very wary of "teenage prodigies" stories, they're very marketable but I think they're bad for everybody involved: on one hand the "prodigy" is on exhibit like some kind of circus freak and at this age is probably ill-prepared to deal with the…

there are very... very few prodigies in this world who could've done it without strong mentorship. Mozart and Tiger Woods are both thought to be prodigies, but their parents were very involved in their developmental process.

Earl Woods wasn't swinging the club for Tiger.

Don't know enough about Mozart to know if his father actually wrote and played 90% of his works.

Re: 16 year old app developer: Plagiarist or Prodigy?

#133

Post by valuearb » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 9:04 PM UTC

Waterluvian wrote: post #12

jjevanoorschot wrote: post #3

"Such kind of people give Women in Code a really, really bad name, because sweetie, it takes tonnes of hardwork, cutting through competition, persistent dealing with sexism and lot of patience to make place for yourself in this male-dominant coveted industry." It's quite ironic that in a sentence about sexism and a male-dominated industry, the author addresses the developer by 'sweetie'.

In my experience, "sweetie" is a word older women use condescendingly towards younger men or women.

I use "sweetie" all the time because I live in a house with 3 girls and no guys. It's a tough habit to break when I go to work.

Re: 16 year old app developer: Plagiarist or Prodigy?

#134

Post by valuearb » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 9:07 PM UTC

FRex wrote: post #37

j-pb wrote: post #2

This is advertisement. They use her story to promote the app. Of course she didn't write the thing, no "child prodigy" that "released an app that will change the world" in the last 10 years of apps, did. It's either a political diversity narrative or emotional advertisement for a product. But yeah, let's all waste our time holding 16 old kids "accountable" for their "unethical" behaviour, like big boy adults do, that…

Yes. "If you manage to get social media on your side by endearing them then you can lie and steal" is the better lesson to teach a 16 year old. A 16 year old can waste his or her life by this age if he or she does really badly in school or smokes weed and gets caught. I can forgive teens for a lot of silly things like lying, cheating, petty crime, etc. but not doubling down when caught and creating a social media hat…

She was an intern? Attended a conference? Used Google Translate to change strings?

What a prodigy!

Re: 16 year old app developer: Plagiarist or Prodigy?

#135

Post by valuearb » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 9:09 PM UTC

ealexhudson wrote: post #23

I have to say, I found the "story" very leading. A lot of inconclusive evidence labelled a lot stronger than it deserves, especially the "confession". The reality of a lot of app development now is that you can go a long way by not doing very much. Ok, so the git graph shows another developer committed many more lines: since when have we, as an industry, taken KLOC as a serious measure of anything?? Those lines of co…

If she has trouble with Python she's miles away from a competent Swift or Objective C developer.

Re: 16 year old app developer: Plagiarist or Prodigy?

#136

Post by B5E6ftS4tgpiW » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 9:31 PM UTC

As a 16 year old male who has spent years and years hard at work, learning JavaScript and Rust, it really saddens me that people like this get the praise. There are lots of us working hard and putting in the hours, because we are intelligent enough to know that apps are a moonshot and not a key to success. I am all for gender equality, but it's blatant that the fact that the "developer" here is female has blown the actual achievement out of proportion. Maybe I should just get 'the change'. Maybe that's the key to success.

Re: 16 year old app developer: Plagiarist or Prodigy?

#137

Post by simplify » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 9:37 PM UTC

cableshaft wrote: post #112

EnderMB wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easy enough to write code when you're young, but to write something that is being actively used is impressive. With that being said, I do find the worship of young people in tech a bit worrying. Over the years I've worked with a handful of talented developers that have started from a very young age, and over the years they become very good at a relatively young age. By the time they reach 20, they're senior-leve…

My brother was a security consultant for a few major websites that you've most likely used yourself at the age of 16, many years ago. He knew more about security at 16 than most developers I work with today. Don't discount someone's knowledge or abilities because of an arbitrary age. He's still successfully protecting servers from getting hacked today, when pretty much every other server is getting hacked nowadays.

Did you reply to the wrong comment? They didn't say anything dismissive, and even expressed the impressiveness of someone writing a usable app at 16.

Re: 16 year old app developer: Plagiarist or Prodigy?

#138

Post by skate22 » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 10:11 PM UTC

"There is no storyboard, lol. For any iOS dev who is just starting out, making an application without storyboards is just unbelievable."

When i was 17, for the 2nd iOS app i launched on the app store, i made the GUI programatically. It was a simple app and trying to combine story boards with code just confused me.

I haven't investigated this app at all, but seriously? I stopped reading after that gross speculation.

Re: 16 year old app developer: Plagiarist or Prodigy?

#139

Post by rep_movsd » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 10:39 PM UTC

simias wrote: post #64

rep_movsd wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually have the entire source code so I have enough evidence. Obviously I can't reveal it since it would be illegal. But she gave it to me of her own free will, and if you think 10000 lines can be SO'd then you live in a bubble

If you want us to believe you without giving any proof you'll have to give us more evidence. Why did she give you the (incriminating) source? Why can't you reveal it? What in said source code convinces you she didn't write it?

You can see in the conversation screenshot that she uploaded code on Google drive at my request - my only intention was to review the code. Yes she trusted me that much - in fact there are a lot of peoples code I have reviewed and fixed.

The code is too complicated for a beginner to have written. There are generator expressions, lambdas and what not in there.

I could go ahead and post the previous conversations where I was struggling to get basic programming concepts into her head, but shes already gone rabid in trying to discredit me. More material from my side will make her react even more extremely.

My biggest question and open challenge to her is this:

If she wrote all of it -

1) Show us the git log

2) If she insists aviral corrected and merged the code himself, show us the original fragments of code she sent, or show us the mails containing fragments of code if she emailed it to him.

If aviral was really a mentor, why would he use this crude method of collaboration, he'd explain how to use git and github to her to raise pull requests, commit code and so on.

Even the most pleb developer uses github and manages to commit code and so forth to it in a few days. Just look at the number of git repos with hello world like code in them.

I'm sure she'll come up with some excuse why the above is impossible like "we deleted intermediate stuff and mails", or "I dont know how to use git", or whatever hamstering.

I saw bullshit I called it. The burden of proof is on her. I have much more to lose by lying than she does. I have a life, a career and people will surely take the word of a teenage girl over a man in his 30s. She could instantly destroy all my credibility and reputation by showing proof.

In the unlikely event that she can provide proof that can convince without doubt, then I'll eat my words. If she can't then its her word against mine - I have nothing to lose or gain by her rise or fall, I don't even own Macs, iPhones or do mobile development.

I have no motivation to lie. I've built apps all my life. She has every motivation to - this is her ticket to getting into the USA.

Also what about the guy who was told directly by aviral that aviral developed the app for a small sum of money under an NDA?

Aviral has even tweeted something to the effect of "I lost respect for this guy who made a private conversation public". That's damning evidence.

Re: 16 year old app developer: Plagiarist or Prodigy?

#140

Post by YouAreGreat » Mon, Feb 05, 2018, 11:37 PM UTC

grzm wrote: post #105

rep_movsd wrote: post #44

Why is this flagged? How can we request unflagging? Is it all about censorship of harsh truths?

Members may flag submissions due to the resulting discussion on HN as much as the submission itself: the sets of topics that are interesting and topics that can be constructively discusses on HN are not identical. Both are important to keep HN interesting. FWIW, it's not flagged at the time I'm writing this comment.

Quality of HN commentary is down and the flagging epidemic is part of it.

The problem is sinking and killing discussions that already got going. A minority of selfish users gets to demolish collaborative work that other users already invested in.

The incentives are for lower effort from commenters. A downward spiral.