Ask HN: The rising “Hackathon Hackers” culture

"Criminals" do things like try to watch DVDs on Linux. "Criminals" use encryption without giving the US government a key[2]. "Criminals" design platforms that allow people to share information conveniently[3].

When you have people, even in 2015, in positions of power over technology law and policy who have never even used email[4], we still have to worry that the US government, and other governments who are similarly populated by such illiterates will make people who want to develop, learn and share information about technology "criminals"[5].

This isn't new, either[6]: During the duration of the US involvement of the great war (1917-18) amateur wireless equipment was not legal to operate. Instead of fully legalizing it afterwards, they brought in regulation to control who had the ability to use what kind of equipment -- in effect taking a generation of people who were tinkering with technology and taking the commons that was the public airwaves and slowly beginning the process of partitioning it into the state we have today, where iHeartMedia owns 850 radio stations, wireless use is just now with wifi and cellphones beginning to be something the public 'just does'...but only when they connect to large company networks(eg comcast).

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Lech_Johansen [2] http://www.androidpolice.com/2015/01/16/obama-goes-record-en... [3] kim.com [4] http://www.businessinsider.com/lindsey-graham-says-he-has-ne... [5] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html [6] https://plus.google.com/105395547687614433866/posts/WHHYbLcG...

4. This is not at all true. If you send me a link to code to look at and it sucks, I won't hire you. Perhaps my perspective is skewed since I rarely ever hire people who I have to teach computer science 101 to, rather I take only people who show promise, have the tools, and simply need to put in the time. Your work is completely reflective of you, so please just don't throw random bad code and call attention to it. This is terrible advice.

Anyway, I think you missed the point of my next list. The point is that you give these things long and hard thought. You do them one day if you get there, and you mess around for a few weekends. What you don't do is dedicate years on these projects unless you treat it like a video game in terms of fun level.

1. This is why you take a class in writing an OS and screw around for a few days. This is different from writing an actual OS.

2. Same as #1.

3. New databases are often being written and they are bad. A lot of the new databases are simply layers on others, not true databases. As for this issue, again, it's something that requires careful thought and experience. You better be solving a problem and be solving it well. The fact that things are written is not justification to write them. Notice how so many of these are written and not really used. Notice all the problems created, abandoned projects, and catastrophic design flaws that creep in later in the projects because of lack of planning, thinking, and ability. I've contributed code to some of the biggest databases out there and I don't feel qualified to write one myself. Sorry, but this is another skill beyond most people. If you've ever worked with someone who really gets this type of programming, you realize they were born to do this. You may be a better programmer than them in everything else, but DB, OS, programming language people who are good are super rare.

My lists are not narrow-minded. You can philosophize about how little Johnny can do anything. I speak more in terms of actual experience and reality. It is better to tell it like it is. You can write whatever code, whenever you want, just be reasonable. Build things you and other people want to use. Do not build hacky, half-baked things that waste time and repeat history. Following this advice would probably eliminate a good majority of the bad projects out there. If you can't see that, I am not sure where you've been working all these years. I've worked with some brilliant people, and especially the ones who did these things would tell you the same.

A lot of corporate ones are set up with contracts that leave your work at their mercy to continue without you. Unless there's a prize - it isn't worth it with these types of arrangements.

For social good, civil, city government, university etc - I'll do it with no expectations just to make a difference.