It has never been too appealing to me to work for a couple of days under time crunch, which is what I always thought hackathons were. The author has done over 30 of them though, so there must be something else that draws people in.
Last time I did one I ended up not really attaching myself to a team at all because I had some family issues come up early in the weekend that needed sorting out, and I think that ended up being the most fun I've had at a hackathon - I spent the entire weekend just chatting to people, and occasionally helping out teams with issues they were having where I had some experience. It turned into a mentorthon, which is honestly much more satisfying.
There were a ton of benefits to me personally.
I got to see a ton of different working styles and tech stacks. I got exposed to a lot of the more “playful” side of the technologist’s Internet. I got to see what it took to rapidly stand up a winning “demo,” while it being completely obvious to us (the winners) that we didn’t have the best idea OR best implementation of an idea.
Most of all, though, it was really fun to meet technologists from all walks of life and party with them, drinking too much alcohol and caffeine in a high-pressure environment. It made for a great way to bond with a bunch of people when I was otherwise just a disconnected hobbyist.
I think the tone of the hackathon is really important. I’ve only ever done non-profit based hackathons: art, civics, etc. where the central task is on the order of “what cool or fun thing can we do to make the world more beautiful, more fun, or just better?”
Also, it’s an excuse for people to try out ideas and stacks that they weren’t otherwise willing to give themselves time to explore.
very nicely said.
Events are more just workshops / hanging out, with projects being more of a secondary thing.
total
I’ve never participated in a hackathon with a 1st prize worth over $500, and I’m not sure I’d want to. But I guess if I had a bunch of random unmonetized projects sitting around then entering them into high-prize-value hackathons could be a way to shop them around. I’m just not sure why an organization would call an event like that a “hackathon.”
Turns out you code better when well rested.
At my previous employer, we did 2 hackathons a year. They were structured so that you could go hard on something you cared a lot about if you wanted to, or you could walk around checking out the (often pretty novel and cool) projects that the teams were working on. There was free food, karaoke, one time there was a cover band playing dance music. If you didn’t want to do a hackathon project, you could take a course on Lynda or Pluralsight, or just goof off and hang out. However, it was a sort of “enforced holiday” where normal day-to-day work was halted.
Sometimes people would work on an incremental quality-of-life improvement to the product that normally wouldn’t be prioritized, with the goal of actually getting them into the product. I’d usually start teams doing really ambitious projects with lots of whiz-bang stuff with the goal of getting the product folks to think bigger about where our product could go. It was a lot of fun, and I think more companies should run hackathons this way.
Also, for some people working for a couple of days under time crunch is the best way to spark their creative output (which may or may not be a sign of possible ADHD, by the way ;])