I’m tired of the opportunists and their hackathons • Hacker News Board

Re: I’m tired of the opportunists and their hackathons

#91

Post by SimHacker » Mon, May 21, 2012, 11:17 AM UTC

ryancarson wrote: post #37

olivercameron wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just not entirely sure how someone can be taken advantage of at a hackathon. Are you implying that someone will steal their product? Or that they'll somehow be convinced to give up a large % stake in their project by someone who can't code? Again, an example of a hackathon where this has happened would be great. Besmirching the name of hackathons in general is wrong. As for hacker mansions, the post you linked to…

You can be taken advantage of simply by participating. Hackathons that are tacked on to events are a great example: they're simply a way to sell more tickets. I've been guilty of this in the past on shows we've done (Twitter's Chirp conf, etc). Can good things happen at these hackathons? You bet. That doesn't mean Developers shouldn't be careful though. As for "20-hour days", that's just a number you've thrown out. W…

The Plone community had "Castle Sprints": http://plone.org/events/sprints/past-sprints/castlesprint

Re: I’m tired of the opportunists and their hackathons

#92

Post by kragen » Mon, May 21, 2012, 3:32 PM UTC

kumarm wrote: post #78

reledi wrote: post #25

> It’s a joke and I’m tired of it. Developers aren’t monkeys in a cage who can’t wait to do the next “hackathon”. They’ve got families, bills to pay and every other pressure that normal people do. They don’t want to drink Red Bull all night and sleep under their desks. Except I do want to do those things, and many others do as well. Not all developers have families or lots of bills to pay. Even those with lots of res…

>>If they don't appeal to you, don't go to them By the same logic if we don't like OP's opinion, we should stop reading and may be stop questioning him instead? People will and should question any new practice.

How are hackathons a new practice? We've been doing them since the 1960s if not longer.

Re: I’m tired of the opportunists and their hackathons

#93

Post by kragen » Mon, May 21, 2012, 3:34 PM UTC

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #84

mekarpeles wrote: post #62

Sometimes it's not about opportunism. I live in a 4 bedroom hacker house with 11 entrepreneurs/programmers. It's cramped, we have bunk beds and sleeping bags. I've personally never been happier. Despite many of us being (second time) founders of companies, contractors, or having jobs, we hack together several times a week, work 14+ hour days (including weekends), manage CodeSF events monthly, find time to attend hack…

There are also a lot of people who are genuinely enthused (obsessed) with computer science and who devote their lives to knowledge... Who learn how to implement JK flip flops on a breadboard, build languages entirely from lambda calculus, and study convex optimization in their free time. More importantly, they do so because they love hacking, not because they love being a hacker (though I admit hacker culture and com…

I guess you don't know a lot of CS grad students at Berkeley or Stanford then. When I lived in the Bay Area, I did (2000-2006); they were.

Re: I’m tired of the opportunists and their hackathons

#94

Post by kragen » Mon, May 21, 2012, 3:40 PM UTC

alecco wrote: post #46

Heard at ISOJ 2012: "Making software is easy. It's the journalism that's hard" (13th International Symposium on Online Journalism) I can only speak of the Buenos Aires startup scene. It's even worse than OP states. For example, this weekend an organization called "Palermo Valley" (claims to be non-profit but runs on a .com) organized a "Geeks on a Plane" meetup. If you see the about us pages and speakers it's full of…

I'm the hacker friend in question (thanks!) and I seem to recall that you've come to and enjoyed a couple of hackathons at my place :)

I've also been disappointed with other nominally hacker-oriented events. I keep going to Argentine Bar Camps and keep being depressed at the lack of technical content other than infosec. (Argentina has a fantastic infosec community, which I have no interest in.)

However, I've been positively impressed with RubyAr and PyAr events. JSConf this weekend was apparently good too. Any other recommendations?

I think there are substantial realms of human endeavor where it's really true that "making software is easy," because they need software that's so easy that nonhackers can make it. I think that's a huge credit to all the hackers who have worked on software for making this stuff easy over the years. Unfortunately, it does result in some people thinking that that's all there is...

Re: I’m tired of the opportunists and their hackathons

#95

Post by kragen » Mon, May 21, 2012, 3:49 PM UTC

exim wrote: post #90

Hackathons are good demonstration of some underlying reasons why non-software engineers hesitate to call us engineers as well :) Would you live in a house built during a "civil-engineerathon"?

You must not be from the US, because apparently you haven't heard of Habitat for Humanity, which builds houses in buildathons, or the Amish, who do the same thing when they build their houses and barns. (Surely you've heard of a "barn-raising"?) Maybe you should watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0ph0rA-A9U

And you must not know much about construction, either, because there are regular contests where teams compete to see who can build houses fastest, which are well-known among people who work in construction. Unfortunately I'm not one of them, so I don't remember what they're called.

Re: I’m tired of the opportunists and their hackathons

#96

Post by MortenK » Mon, May 21, 2012, 4:02 PM UTC

geon wrote: post #55

mmphosis wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kinda like this... Dear Hackers, Here is the challenge: Please create the next killer app, and give all the rights to me so I can take all of your work and make a bundle of cash. I know you like building things, and I like making money. Seems like a good arrangement to me. I might even throw in a free T-shirt.

Wait... Who in their right mind would work for free on someone else's project? And sign away the ownership of the code (non open source) for them to profit from? Every programmer I know have more ideas than they will ever have time to finish. Why would they do something like that?

With the (hollow) promise of riches, connections or whatever else appeals to the young programmer.

Re: I’m tired of the opportunists and their hackathons

#97

Post by eli_gottlieb » Mon, May 21, 2012, 6:17 PM UTC

mekarpeles wrote: post #88

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are also a lot of people who are genuinely enthused (obsessed) with computer science and who devote their lives to knowledge... Who learn how to implement JK flip flops on a breadboard, build languages entirely from lambda calculus, and study convex optimization in their free time. More importantly, they do so because they love hacking, not because they love being a hacker (though I admit hacker culture and com…

I appreciate your perspective. I can only speak from personal experience. I am a PhD dropout passionate about entrepreneurship and computer science (I must admit I gravitate more to hacker culture than valley subculture). I think graduate school is actually a pretty good selector since many people attend graduate school because they are passionate about academia. I think Stanford is a good example of a source where g…

I think we've accidentally conflated two things here.

Graduate school is certainly a good selector for invention: PhD school is all about research, and therefore invention, by definition. These folks in academia and in certain companies did found the hacker culture.

However, that hacker culture has now become strongly dissociated from Silicon Valley "hacker culture", which has by now become more about "innovation" and entrepreneurship than about actually building new, awesome stuff.

EDIT: It appears we're violently agreeing.