Why not be supportive and friendly to everyone? I always find the "say it to their face" rule is a good one for formulating even negative comments. Rather than channeling your inner comic book guy, it helps you think of how to state something unpleasant in a constructive, polite way.
Implore HN: Celebrate and encourage young developers who post here
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Re: Implore HN: Celebrate and encourage young developers who post here
#22Why not be supportive and friendly to everyone? I always find the "say it to their face" rule is a good one for formulating even negative comments. Rather than channeling your inner comic book guy, it helps you think of how to state something unpleasant in a constructive, polite way.
Absolutely.
But it's worth making a special effort for the young. As I told a teen poster below:
Someone helping me with a project is nice. Someone helping you with a project is an investment in the future. My neuroplasticity wanes with every passing year. Your mind remains limber. I am encumbered by obligations and debts, limiting my flexibility. You have infinitely more options.
Helping you is just a better bet than helping me. You're still on the launchpad, fuel tank still full. If there's something simple, like an encouraging comment or a thoughtful correction, that can be done to help you meet a wonderful trajectory, we should absolutely do it.
Re: Implore HN: Celebrate and encourage young developers who post here
#23newbies should not get discouraged. I am involved with a lot of young developers through mpelembe.net and I always encourage newbies to get involved in discussion groups and ocassionally manage to persuade to attend developer events.
Re: Implore HN: Celebrate and encourage young developers who post here
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
> but if we treat them differently because of age So, to set up some obvious strawmen, you're ok with child labour? Or child soldiers? You're against laws preventing children from working more than x hours a week, or the age of consent? Of course we treat them differently because of age. They haven't had the time or the exposure to "toughen" them up - and (based on my own life), at that age they're quite possibly shy…
Law does not apply here and I didn't know we were discussing anything legal. Back to the context here, I am talking about the point of posting an app to HN. The goal is for feedback, if you want clear focused feedback, you need a focused post. The extra detail only bring the entire thread off-topic, as has been proven here multiple times.
I would say people being assholes brings the thread off-topic.
Re: Implore HN: Celebrate and encourage young developers who post here
#25I think announcing your young age alongside your project is important because it opens up more opportunities for others to guide you and help fuel your passion and talent. Without the age, people will assume that the creator is old enough to know what they enjoy and what they want to pursue. But with the age, you'll have people with more experience saying "Since you obviously like X, you should look into Y and Z. Here are some great resources on those topics." Advice like that is invaluable and we should encourage scenarios that result in it.
Re: Implore HN: Celebrate and encourage young developers who post here
#26Other people shouldn't get encouragement and guidance and tolerance for their newness? Suggesting that you are an x years old child prodigy has become a cheap way of getting front page. If we are going to be nice to new projects we should be nice to them regardless of the claimed age of the author.
Re: Implore HN: Celebrate and encourage young developers who post here
#27s/young/any/
Re: Implore HN: Celebrate and encourage young developers who post here
#28Other people shouldn't get encouragement and guidance and tolerance for their newness? Suggesting that you are an x years old child prodigy has become a cheap way of getting front page. If we are going to be nice to new projects we should be nice to them regardless of the claimed age of the author.
I didn't read this as exclusionary -- it's just a shorthand way of saying how much experience one has. Someone who is 35 could easily say "I have [X] number of years using [technique/technology]."
If someone doesn't indicate age or experience, the default would be to treat submissions or projects as the marketplace would.
Re: Implore HN: Celebrate and encourage young developers who post here
#29I think announcing your young age alongside your project is important because it opens up more opportunities for others to guide you and help fuel your passion and talent. Without the age, people will assume that the creator is old enough to know what they enjoy and what they want to pursue. But with the age, you'll have people with more experience saying "Since you obviously like X, you should look into Y and Z. Her…
Yeah, this is a really important point. Part of good mentorship is exposing unknown unknowns. You've got way, way more of those the younger you are.
Re: Implore HN: Celebrate and encourage young developers who post here
#30If this is in relation to http://vishnumenon.com/2013/01/21/im-35-months-old-and-i-mad... then I think you miss the point. I agree with the author of that and it is the most common sense post I've read, so far, regarding this issue. The reality is people posting their age doesn't simply mean "I am new at this. I know you guys aren't. I want you to check it out and give me encouragement and guidance." Simultaneously the people throwing out the "age is irrelevant" argument simply miss the point, also. I'm 19 and I've been programming for as long as I can remember starting with my shitty commodore64 hand-me-down. Along the years I have received much criticism and help and am immensely grateful to the people who took the time out to answer every question I had, trivial and otherwise - and believe me, there were plenty of them. However the idea of constructive criticism on HN, and sadly, in the hacker community at large is ironically more political than logical. "Criticism" seems to be code for "I'm smarter than you and I'll be damned if I don't make sure you know it." The hostility towards, not just kids, but people's projects in general borders on the pathological and that's what needs to be addressed. I wholeheartedly agree that kids who are building fun projects do need that nudge and that encouragement to go deeper down the rabbit hole, however we should indeed distinguish between encouragement and patting on the back. The problem is the risk of creating a Hollywoood mentality (Hollywood may be the bastion of acting but really most people are more attracted to the prospects of fame than actual acting). We need to give them encouragement that lets them enjoy the process, not just massaging their egos, and moreover we need to get them to enjoy constructive criticism and see it not as "boo-hoo they didn't like my stuff" but as "hmm I never thought about that." The reality is, the poisonous, know-it-all, thinly veiled political nature of our culture doesn't provide this.