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Hackathons are bad for you

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Re: Hackathons are bad for you

#91

Post by equalarrow »

Isofarro wrote: post #53
scottporad wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Hackathons run by companies have always seemed to me to be a way for them to unleash creative thinking without having to devote significant company time to it or make strategic tradeoffs." Yes. The internal hackathons I've been involved with have taught me a lot about a) problems developers face that they're motivated to fix, and b) areas developers are personally interested in and motivated to put forth some effort…

The internal hackathons at Yahoo (Europe) were essentially an exercise in futility. They jumped on the hackathon bandwagon, but were unprepared to deal with the after effects of a hackday - what to do with these ideas. From what I saw, hackday was used to pretend the organisation cared about the ideas of it's engineers and web developers, but at a safe enough distance not to affect their product roadmap. When push ca…

Does Yahoo ever do anything with the ideas generated in house? ;)

Re: Hackathons are bad for you

#92

Post by mgkimsal »

michaelochurch wrote: post #74

The real crime is that programmers have so little time for the exploratory work that the career requires that they have to do all of that off-hours. Doctors can read medical journals and call it "working time". Most programmers have feces thrown at them if they're caught learning on the job. This is just something we have to suffer until we develop a stronger tribal identity and demand the conditions of a profession…

"Your metered work obligation is ~15 hours per week, and the other 25-40 you spend keeping current, networking, and performing other off-meter, self-directed work that is important to you and the profession."

That sounds like the work schedule of professors at universities, but that's the only profession that springs to mind.

Re: Hackathons are bad for you

#93

Post by jon-wood »

kevinconroy wrote: post #4

Hackathons run by companies have always seemed to me to be a way for them to unleash creative thinking without having to devote significant company time to it or make strategic tradeoffs. The best companies find a way to build the spirit of hackathons into the daily culture and provide scheduled, dedicated time to do this during normal business hours. That being said, if you're young and have no kids then hackathons…

It all depends how you approach it. We recently went away for a week (with our wives) as a development team, locked ourselves in a rural cottage, and built the first iteration of an iPhone app for the site.

We worked normal hours, spent evenings relaxing, and still got a huge amount done in the week because we weren't in the usual environment of having distractions and other things popping up. A great time was had, and because we hadn't spent a weekend coding for 36 hours straight we were fresh and ready to go on Monday morning.

Re: Hackathons are bad for you

#96

Post by uglytom »

alanctgardner2 wrote: post #33

All of these are valid criticisms, but in my mind a hackathon is a treat: pizza, soda and staying up all night is fun sometimes, regardless of whether you play Halo, watch movies, or write a cool app. I agree with a lot of the comments that say you can't get much done; it's mostly a case of connecting existing libraries and data sources to create a sort of 'mash-up'. That said, being able to prototype quickly is an a…

Yea, I definitely know that within my college experiences with hackathons, it was something that everyone looked forward to. You would be able to create something cool, hangout with your friends, get free food, and just have a great time.

It's a bonding experience.

Re: Hackathons are bad for you

#97

Post by papsosouid »

neurotech1 wrote: post #44
trafficlight wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a consumer of copious amounts of caffeinated beverages, I have anecdotal evidence to back this up.

As someone who has consumed copious * 10 amounts of caffeine, I would disagree. The tolerance to the diuretic effect isn't that much. What some people refer to as "tolerance" is more the effect of dehydration. Of course, drinking large quantities of water to balance the large quantities of caffeinated beverages isn't a brilliant idea either..

As others have posted, scientific evidence shows no diuretic effect. You are peeing a lot because you are drinking a lot. You would have to pee just as much if you were drinking water.

Re: Hackathons are bad for you

#98

Post by cnlwsu »

michaelochurch wrote: post #74

The real crime is that programmers have so little time for the exploratory work that the career requires that they have to do all of that off-hours. Doctors can read medical journals and call it "working time". Most programmers have feces thrown at them if they're caught learning on the job. This is just something we have to suffer until we develop a stronger tribal identity and demand the conditions of a profession…

> Do surgeons spend 40 hours per week, 50 weeks per year, cutting open bodies?

Actually depending on the state, hospital, and part of their career it can be more like 80 hours per week.

Re: Hackathons are bad for you

#99

Post by lutusp »

jbackus wrote: post #75
lutusp wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yup, and I never said I was advocating extremities [sic] either. What -- you're against the idea of fingers and toes? Or did you mean "extremes"?

ex·trem·i·ty (k-strm-t) n. pl. ex·trem·i·ties 1. The outermost or farthest point or portion.

Yes -- the OP clearly meant "extremes," as in "I never said I was advocating extremes either."

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/extreme

Quote:

1. Most remote in any direction; outermost or farthest: the extreme edge of the field.

2. Being in or attaining the greatest or highest degree; very intense: extreme pleasure; extreme pain.

3. Extending far beyond the norm: an extreme conservative. See Synonyms at excessive.

4. Of the greatest severity; drastic: took extreme measures to conserve fuel.

Re: Hackathons are bad for you

#100

Post by mamoswined »

I think the dysfunctional approach to "hackathons" described here leads to a lot of people just not participating. Maybe it's a stereotype, but for myself and other women I know, the idea of not getting enough sleep and eating crappy food while working for hours and hours isn't very appealing at all.

An exception were the Food + Tech hackathons I went to when I lived in NYC. They took place during the day and there was a variety of good food to eat no matter what your food preferences were. I'd love to organize something like that in Chicago.

I did try to organize a gourmet hack night but it didn't go so well. I got duck confit on my keyboard.

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