Don’t overlook the real problems out there | Hacker News Reader

Don’t overlook the real problems out there

clint-hill.com

8 pointsclintjhill9 comments

So you wrote a blog post titled "You made your site in 5 hours - nobody cares".

Nobody should care.

I was doing my usual reading this morning and I started to recognize a pattern. Not just this morning, but a pattern that has been occurring over the last year or more.

It goes like this:

  * Blogger sees a link to some app on [Reddit,Digg,Hacker News]
  * Blogger thinks the app is stupid and insignificant
  * Blogger takes the time to write a rant about it

I understand why this happens. I have done it myself. Bloggers do this because there are posts out there that have been made in just minutes or hours that turned out to generate a huge number of page views. The allure is tremendous.

Here is the part that gets me: There are so many bigger problems out there to blog about.

So what you're saying is that while I'm blogging about education and healthcare software problems, I haven't chosen big enough problems?

Beginners like to have fun, and it is a good and healthy thing that they do so.

It's not their fault that social news systems are broken [1] and tend to vote their fun beginner projects up to the front page where they waste your precious time.

If you're going to rant about this problem, try to rant at the systems that are at fault: Digg, Reddit, and perhaps even Hacker News. Don't pick on the people who are doing silly practice projects. Everyone needs to do silly practice projects some of the time. We are all beginners at least once. In software, we are beginners much of the time.

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[1] In this writer's opinion, not in mine. I don't think these particular headlines on HN are a big problem. I even appreciate the utility of the "built in x hours" headline format: It's truth in advertising. I know what I'm going to see on the other end of such a link, and I can avoid it if I like.

Actually I wasn't blaming the social news systems at all. In fact I only mentioned them as examples of where I see these links most often.

I still contend a beginner practice project can be built around some of these bigger problems. Why not?

I still contend a beginner practice project can be built around some of these bigger problems. Why not?

The essential quality of a beginner practice project is that it is guaranteed to be finished quickly. There are many reasons for this.

It's important to get the positive feedback -- the warm glow that comes from a finished thing. Otherwise you just become frustrated and sad and you'll quit instead of sticking around long enough to stop being a beginner.

It's important to test the full stack -- you want to practice the stuff that happens near the end of a project as well as the stuff at the beginning. Often it's only when you try to launch the "finished" product that you discover the terrible flaws in your original design. Often, the features of the new tool or technique that you're trying to learn will only make sense after you've experienced every part of the design cycle.

As a beginner, you are really underqualified to choose an appropriate project. You have no idea how good you are. You have no idea how hard the hard problems are, or why. Best to make sure that your badly-chosen project is a short and sweet one.

Having said all of that: Of course it might be possible to put beginners to work on tiny, solveable, easily-shipped pieces of these larger problems. That's what a teacher's job is. Why don't you write out a set of suggested projects and suggest them to some beginners?

Two other things to consider: 1) if it's not something you or someone close to you needs or wants, then it won't be a very good beginner project because you will be lacking that immediate positive feedback you spoke of. 2) the bigger problems may be more "useful" but these apps are being submitted to other developers for approval. Most devs won't know that you just solved a major problem in healthcare and will just shrug. If you submit it to a healthcare blog "i did this in one day!" You'll immediately start getting negative feedback from a bunch of non-techies who (as they should) are looking at its usability, not the core technology you implemented.

To throw out an idea: two of my "pet projects" that I have yet to work on are a basic inventory system for small manufacturers and a basic job quoting/scheduling system for manufacturers/job shops. Technologically they're both easy and it shouldn't be hard to find people to present them to (despite what so many online think, the US is full of small manufacturing businesses). Unfortunately, neither of them is "fun" so don't make good beginner projects.

Not a bad idea.

I think it's interesting to see what people can do in a fixed amount of time.

Submitting such a project doesn't mean that's all someone is doing with their life. In fact, it necessarily doesn't mean that.

Trivial problems are easy to solve - real problems are hard. Speaking as a veteran of health care and education, the challenges in these fields are primarily bureaucratic and political, not technical. You would be crazy to jump into either field without an understanding of the domain or preexisting relationships with potential customers. In my experience, startup-minded folks rarely have the experience beyond software itself necessary to build a business in another field.

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