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Back end developers on hackathons are not needed

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Re: Back end developers on hackathons are not needed

#71

Post by mohanmcgeek »

magicink81 wrote: post #26
Kaze404 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got baited into going to one of those once. I was promised the prospect of spending a dozen hours with friends building something cool, but halfway through I realized we were just doing free labor for one of Latin America's biggest banks and just left. I'm still longing for events where my friends and I can gather to build something cool, and game jams are the closest I ever got to that.

+1 had a fun Node Knockout experience many years ago making a game with 3 friends. We had a game artist / sound designer, and two engineers with chops on the front-end and back-end.

Node knockout and rails rumble before that. :)

In which the Judges have to actually try out the submission instead of listening to people go through a slide deck on a video.

Re: Back end developers on hackathons are not needed

#72

Post by mohanmcgeek »

some_furry wrote: post #67
jjoonathan wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it shouldn't be this way but it is. Unless we figure out how to reclaim the term, the important thing is to recognize when a "hackathon" is actually a "pitchathon" (usually) and to not waste effort doing things that will go unappreciated at a pitchathon (namely, hacking).

> Unless we figure out how to reclaim the term, The only winning move is not to play. Or more specifically, the only winning move is to exploit these pitchathons to meet people with complementary skills ("backend dev? meet UI engineer") and then collectively run the hell away from the event with your expanded network. Then go do a real hackathon with interested parties, and not business pitches.

> The only winning move is not to play

It has infact come to this. A lot of people whom I met at hackathons don't participate anymore and it took me a while to realise that this was because hackathons aren't what they used to be.

Re: Back end developers on hackathons are not needed

#74

Post by game_the0ry »

hellojesus wrote: post #69

Seems the concensus is that front end is the most imperative thing out of the gate. Seems true in my non hackathon side project, of which I'm the solo dev. Can anyone please recommend a good front end framework/tool for a backend dev? I've been working on a project for awhile and the sequence has been: 1. Get requirements 2. Make excellent back end (and clarify functionality, edge cases along the way) 3. Build non se…

> Can anyone please recommend a good front end framework/tool for a backend dev?

Next.js + deploy to Vercel - great dev experience.

Re: Back end developers on hackathons are not needed

#75

Post by mohanmcgeek »

devmor wrote: post #22

OP is the kind of person that messages his highschool friends on Facebook talking about how he has an app he designed that he just needs a developer for and it's "like 90% done", but when you ask him for his part of the work he sends you a PSD with the UI design.

This isn't what the post of talking about.

The post is talking about the fact that hackathons are no longer judged by their technical merits.

that the OP doesn't understand the value of backend developers in real world is not something that I can see from the post.

Re: Back end developers on hackathons are not needed

#76

Post by dzonga »

hellojesus wrote: post #69

Seems the concensus is that front end is the most imperative thing out of the gate. Seems true in my non hackathon side project, of which I'm the solo dev. Can anyone please recommend a good front end framework/tool for a backend dev? I've been working on a project for awhile and the sequence has been: 1. Get requirements 2. Make excellent back end (and clarify functionality, edge cases along the way) 3. Build non se…

I would recommend mithril.js - simple comes with batteries included. and easy to start with, just include it in the script tag. with mithril you will find it easier to transition to the big boys - react, vue, etc. if you wanna start with the big boys, go with svelte though ecosystem is kinda small but the templates etc it's just writing html you're used to. react if you want something ergonomic and easy to find help with - well that is before the shit called hooks

Re: Back end developers on hackathons are not needed

#77

Post by mohanmcgeek »

skinnymuch wrote: post #52
heyparkerj wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My organization's most recent hack day was won by the UX team signing up for a free demo of a chat bot service and demoing it - not a single line of code. We haven't had one since, nor do we use chat bots anywhere in our org a few years later.

How could that win? Others are saying slides were presented. Demoing a SaaS chat bot is nothing!

I can tell you this exact thing happened at my company's hackathon and it finished pretty close to a win.

It was the Alexa prompt driven chatbot. Not a single line of code was written.

Re: Back end developers on hackathons are not needed

#79

Post by _57jb »

Yeah, if you prescribe to the smoke and mirrors style.

Sometimes the logic or capabilities of technology have to be explained at a cursory level just to provide some grounding.

I made the same mistake as OP thinking I could dazzle my "investors". It was the early days of VR before controllers existed and I built a few peripherals to compensate for an interactive training environment (savings of 2MM travel/training etc).

Demo was a hit, numbers were a hit, they started asking about tech, adoption, viability...I believed in VR but they needed to believe it was going to be real based on more than my enthusiasm.

Shelved only to be revived five years later with someone else running it following a trail that had been clearly blazed by competition. I was happy for them but always wished I had been given a chance to take that shot before the wave hit. I just lacked the credentials and I was never clever enough to be a "baffle with bullshit" person.

Backend people even just to say: "I am the authority and everything said here is possible. I will show you if you are seriously interested in the mechanics"

Re: Back end developers on hackathons are not needed

#80

Post by repomies69 »

908B64B197 wrote: post #64
repomies69 wrote: post #4

This assumes the "business-y" type hackathons that are popular these days. Back when I was young, we used to organize hackathons where the point was to hack together something cool, and "winning" was not the point. If you are just making a "clickable prototype UI" that's not cool in my books.

"The main goal of the startup hackathons (or any other) is to validate the idea in a limited time that the product you build is needed by the people in the room." The main goal is to have fun and build something that brings you joy.

Business-driven hackathon doesn't bring joy. Better remove it from my life.
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