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You left out a third group: C (or "systems" or "embedded") programmers. What am I going to do in a weekend that will be fun to show off? "We made a minimal binary IPC protocol over named pipes that is 2.5% faster than typical examples for a few certain types of data, on certain architectures, sometimes." Wooo!

I would go to that hackathon.

You can do some pretty awesome things in Rust over a weekend and it counts as systems programming. Also, your quote sounds fun - it's just a matter of presenting it in a cool way ;)

"...but for some specific inputs it literally sets the device on fire."

That would be something fun to show.

The not getting paid really irks me. I have plenty of my own projects I could do for free, why on earth would I do work for a company for no money, when they will profit from it?

Yes, the exploitation inherent in these events is the biggest turnoff to me. I value my time and expertise too much to give it away for free.

This 100 times. I have raised eyebrows before by declining to participate in a company hackaton or by saying I don't go to hackatons during a job interview.

Somehow saying that is a red flag although I gave them rational reasons:

- I have my own open source projects I would like to contribute to in my free time outside of work

- I am definitely not coming to a co-working space over the weekend (so losing my two days off when I could spend it with friends or doing my hobbies or just relaxing after week of work), work for free and eat unhealthy pizza and soda drinks so even my health suffers

Some companies will be shocked to hear this opinion.

Many hackatons are organized around the host company's business goals. They are either organized for recruiting purposes or to get cheap labor (sometimes both)

I love coding and do code a lot in my own time. But I'm not gonna work for free for some company or government (it's your solutions to their problems) just because they market an event as a hackaton.

There might be better events out there but this is my experience.

Word! Work for free day and night for a whole weekend and give out the IP for the meager pay of some buffet lunch and maybe a tshirt. Are programmers that cheap?

> hey are either organized for recruiting purposes or to get cheap labor (sometimes both)

yeah, i'd argue that in many cases the original meaning of the term "hack" has been co-opted by capitalism

these days i mentally find/replace "hack" with "work", for amusing but arguably far more accurate results: e.g. do i want to go along to a 24-hour workathon for the possibility to win prizes or whatever? nope.

Yeah, that is why i don't attend. There is always a motive from a company behind it.. If i just wanna screw around with code it's better to do that from home, with friends, or on lan's imho.

Is cheap labour really a consideration? Are companies seriously basing products off code written at hackathons?

They don't base products off them but it is useful as quick prototyping / hacking together some minimalistic MVPs. Outside of hackaton they would have to actually pay developers to do this sort of prototyping / hacking work but they can get it for free in hackatons.

It's obviously not a major thing but it still irks me, especially when hackatons are over the weekend when you would normally charge double of normal rate for overtime if it was a part of normal work and you agreed to do it for some reason (meeting deadline etc).

The some of the shit that goes to prod man.

The biggest issue I have with Hackathon culture is when it starts to plague the hiring processes or daily job activities and now we are all supposed to take part on them, by wannabe cool companies, just to get hired.

This. I've seen hackatons being increasingly mentioned during the hiring process in the last few months.

Seeing 40-something adults talking about free beer and hackatons while walking on a floor full of nerf-bullets is beyond comical. I literally couldn't believe it if someone told me this ten years ago.

I miss working in finance.

I've always felt the same. It seems like the least interesting parts of programming: just throwing together a bunch of libraries to get something working.

Let me throw in another sort: introverts. I like coding alone, not in pairs, and most definitely not in some big group event.

My way of participating to hackathons is to go around helping groups. I also dislike big group events (and to a lesser degree coding in group), but I like helping others.

I believe that developers who don't take breaks are not utilizing their full potential. When I lift weights, I take breaks in between. Muscles need rest. So does the brain.

The amount of time I do a physical activity or a non-programming activity contributes to my rest and personal happiness, which makes me program better.

I don't mind hacking something together and not getting paid, but what bothers me is that hackathons are very rarely about what actually gets made - now that many have thousands of dollars worth of prizes, it actually behooves hackers to put a lot of effort into presentations rather than development, and if you don't win a prize you feel like you've wasted your weekend.

I've found civic hackathons like Random Hacks of Kindness (http://www.rhokaustralia.org/) to be a lot more fun though.

I'm in the second group. No interest in doing a hackathon. Also I really like the thinking part and take my time when I can. My work is maybe 15% coding and a lot of other things. I do code for fun at home.

Also I'm kind of a solitary person.

> I see a hackathon as literally all the worst things about software development compressed in to a single event - practically no planning, very little testing, zero documentation

On the bright side, sometimes this is exactly what's needed. I've seen a hackathon which produced, among other things, a simple technology demo that wasn't meant to see any serious use, but if the company were to develop it normally it would have taken a week or two of planning, bikeshedding and review.

Some people just need alcohol to get over their ideals getting in the way, apparently ;)

I understand that some aspects of a Hackathon might be fun, but nowadays my time is simply more valuable than that. Spending time with my loved ones, taking care of myself, putting in a few hours on a pet project that I don't plan to throw away in a few days, and even going to an event for some proper networking feels a much better use of my time than a Hackathon.

I would take both. Even the word Hackathon rubs me in the wrong way. I never describe myself as a hacker though.