Why I don’t like hackathons | Hacker News Reader

Why I don’t like hackathons

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178 pointsAndrewDucker125 comments

haha. that's hilarious. i worked at a company that was trying to change its image from 'sweatshop' to 'we know tech' image (like a google or facebook). What better way did they think to accomplish this than to have 30 of their engineers work for 24 hours straight developing features they were too stupid to come up with on their own!...oh yeah, they had a ping pong table too...so its all good. And shitty pizza.

I'm 40 now, and i remember my manager was like "You going to the hackathon? I want you there." I'm like "are you kidding me? I'm not coding for 24 hours straight with no sleep...and then have to come into work the next day...damn dude, if you're going to have us do a 24 hour session, at least do it during the day (not a weekend)"

He really had no response for that.

the kicker was 1st place was a $50 starbucks gift card.

"are you kidding me? I'm not coding for 24 hours straight with no sleep...and then have to come into work the next day..."

Uh, I would have asked what sort of overtime they were providing. I'm sort of assuming they weren't paying.

Was it a "big corp"? I work at one, and sometimes they do these kind of initiatives, to sound "hip" and all that jazz. They are optional but de facto mandatory, and almost everybody hates it. It seems that we can't take a day or two to rethink and reimplement something that's problematic, but we can (or have to) play "startup" for a day or two. It's as cringeworthy as it gets; you can easily tell that everyone wants to go home or even do real work. And the hypocrisy is mesmerising.

Somebody else here in HN (can't recall the thread) said this kind of initiative in megacorps were "mandatory fun". I can't put it better than that.

"They are optional but de facto mandatory, and almost everybody hates it."

I'm about the same age as OP and I have a lot of big corp experience and ALL "after hours team building activities" are thiny veiled punishment. ALL of them. The only people who don't see them as punishment (at least in public) are the primates winning the dominance ritual by forcing their slaves, err, I mean employees, to do stupid stuff. Or severe stockholm syndrome victims. What a bunch of jerks. If I don't hate them before the teambuilding, I hate them after it, thats for sure...

Non mandatory I don't mind although I'd never attend. Make it mandatory and you light the fire of hate.

As somebody from the Anglophone world, the only good after-hour team-building exercises involve lots of really good food and getting hammered.

Except, what about the people who don't drink?

As someone who works somewhere where these "team building exercises" take place, if the rest of the group is going to be drinking then there is 0% chance of me going. I don't mind people enjoying themselves around me, but I'm not interested in spending time with them as they drink more and more and consequently start acting stupider and more belligerent.

A lot of people enjoy getting shit-faced, but some people don't. I'm the latter. It's enough for me to truly feel sorry for any recovering alcoholics who mistakenly apply for a position on my team. Does all team-building have to include drugs (yes I'm including alcohol as a drug)?

"what about the people who don't drink?'

Its all in the attendance policy. A former employer paid for everyone's first drink and an appetizer platter on Friday at 5:01 pm practically every week. Some drank a root beer and had some chips and salsa and left at about 5:15 pm, gotta pick up the kids or whatever, others reportedly were there all night.

The christmas party (OK, "holiday party") ran the same way, but much more generous.

Its a simple solution and its amazing how easy it is to ruin it. Its like crypto algos.

I drink socially myself, and love that type of work gathering where everyone gets ridiculous, but I respect your stance completely. I can understand why many don't like that situation. And I've thought about it much more since one of my childhood friends had to give up alcohol completely to avoid dying before he turned 30. So now when friday drinking is proposed I get very uneasy wondering who among the invitees may be nervously rubbing away at a one year token in their pocket as they smile and try to be team players.

Look, western cultures have been using alcohol to promote social bonding for thousands of years. It works.

I'm not saying I completely disagree, but we've been doing lots of things for long periods of time that we stopped doing for good reasons. I wouldn't be entirely surprised if drinking large amounts of alcohol becomes 'abnormal' in the not-too-distant future.

Don't get me wrong: in my current social circles drinking often and rather heavily is still the de facto social activity, and I enjoy it, albeit less, uh, vigorously than the past. Hangovers have become a bigger issue as I'm getting older. Anyways, some of these same groups also smoke heavily and I've noticed that particular behavior disappearing almost completely in some other groups I interact with. So perhaps alcohol will eventually 'phase out' in a similar way, at least in significant parts of society.

Getting 'hammered', even semi-regularly, is very unhealthy and it might not even foster stronger social ties as efficiently as other methods. It's just the easy default, for now, just like other things have been the easy default in the past.

That is why I mention the good food. Shared consumption creates the bond. If there is just alcohol, you cut off a significant minority.

I regularly drink non-alcoholic beer at these things. It's okay for the first two hours, after which it is perfectly acceptable to leave.

If there is peer pressure to drink, then people get in trouble for being unprofessional.

Fully agree. I always try to avoid them with some kind of excuse, but it doesn't work all the time.

I really hate that some top level managers try to come up with "lets be friends for a few hours" and forget about office politics.

I already have enough from those guys at the office. No need to expend my private life as well.

If you haven't already, read this. it will explain most of it. http://www.ribbonfarm.com/the-gervais-principle/

I'm with you 100%. But how do you feel about something like a company picnic held on the weekend, if it was optional? Would you attend that? I usually try to go to those things, but I'm just curious how others feel.

I don't know, we've done hack weeks where I work and they were really fun and productive. The past few times, it has basically been "take a few days off of your normal tasks and work on a feature that you personally want to work on". Things that you might really like, but haven't been prioritized by the organization.

That actually sounds very cool, productive and fertile for product development - a prototype may be enough for the organization to "see" a new direction. Unfortunately, my experience hasn't been quite the same...

The worst pizza I ever had was at a Datageeks meetup in Munich (absolutely great meetup, by the way; generally over-booked). It was covered in some kind of microwaved, poached chicken, drowned in gloopy curry-sauce-from a tube. I felt so sick and ashamed after the third slice.

At least for me, pizza is one of those foods that I really like when it's good. Personally I tend toward brick oven thin-crust but, in any case, pretty fresh out of the oven, non-soggy, fresh and flavorful ingredients. Unfortunately most pizza, and especially most "event" pizza is none of those things and it's disgusting.

How you know you're contributing to a Cargo Cult: Starbucks is involved.

I'm sure there is some irony to be found here.

Probably a lot of caffein'y/milk'y/froth'y too ..

Yeah, I'll come to your overnight hackathon... and bill the company at my off-hours consulting rate!

I agree with some of these points and I understand why some folks don't like hackathons. I especially understand why some don't like company hackathons or PR hackathons.

I go to about one or two of them per year, am 36 years old, and here's what I DO like about 'generic' hackathons - that have no single sponsor:

    - It's a break from my daily routine (I work from home, so its good to mingle)
    - It's a lot of fun and I meet smart like-minded people.
    - I get to laser focus on learning new tech without any emotional commitment.
    - I know it's all for naught so I have no problem starting something and then not feeling 'guilty' about throwing it away afterwards.
    - Its a serious mental challenge.  I do it more for the personal competition (like golf) rather than competing against others

There are several other reasons, but those are the top for me. I never going in expecting to win (and I never do), so treating it like a weekend of nonsense probably helps.

Actually very reasonable

That's all fine, but the author's points stand.

They are a bit like LAN parties. Don't expect much more than that, and if that's what you want then it's all fine. However, for getting stuff done they are not a good format and his criticisms are valid.

OpenBSD hackathons ( http://www.openbsd.org/hackathons.html )tick a few of the boxes though:

+ not competitive

+ for working on ongoing projects and known problems, rather than throwaway flashy toys

+ keep the "good" from regular hackathons

-----

- still overwhelmingly for a certain demographic (particularly non-inclusive as they are invitation-only)

- still likely to be not very healthy

I've been to one of these, and although I did win, I don't think it's particularly useful other than for entertainment, meeting people, etc. Which admittedly are good goals on their own. But anything other than young males will likely feel increasingly excluded in these events.

"still overwhelmingly for a certain demographic (particularly non-inclusive as they are invitation-only)"

Isn't the OpenBSD hackathons basically self-selected by being for people who contribute to the project.

"still likely to be not very healthy"

Given the trip reports from the last couple, they had a lot healthier (and funner) time than my last trip to Vegas. I seem to remember a hike as part of the events.

I think so, they look interesting but I haven't been to one so I cannot report. From the pics it seems to me that they're something like 90% male in their 20s-30s.

I realise now that my other post was not very clear. I went to a "hackathon" but not an OpenBSD one.

"From the pics it seems to me that they're something like 90% male in their 20s-30s"

That's not a problem of a hackathon, its the basic demographic of contributions to open source.

Yep well, it's the landscape of OSS and software development in general extending into the hackathon. Not something that should be policed IMO but many people would like a different landscape.

her, but anyway.

I agree. I think it really depends on expectations. If you go into the event with a desire to learn a new piece of tech or to try and experiment with a concept, then it's a great fun framework to build something with a well defined, externally set stopping point. And it's fun, esp with other smart people around.

However if you're trying to win, or worse forced to attend, then yeah that's a set up for a stressful, low value event.

I think a "non-interruption weekend" specifically designed around healthy food and sleep breaks is more fruitful in general.

The true value of a hackathon is twofold (imo)

- you don't have normal office interruptions and the like and can focus on one thing for an extended period

- you get to meet interesting people and exchange ideas

I think just focusing on that and mostly ignoring the "extremeness" of hackathons would be awesome. Instead of thinking "how can I code on for hours" a better focus would be "how can we generate a very productive and pleasant environment and still reap the benefits of hackathons".

For example, if it's a biggish place, childcare for parents would be something I'd think about before diving into how to get more coffee to the venue ;)

I think a third benefit is forcing you constrain the scope of what you're doing very aggressively. It makes me way more productive.

Did one a couple years ago - there were just 4 of us, and I was the only software guy. In ... about 30 hours (including my drive time to/from home a couple times) we had a decent-looking and moderately functional piece of software. It actually did quite a lot of stuff, but not what was originally talked about. But everyone was still impressed. Why? Mostly because I was able to focus on a few core things while saying no to most ideas/requests. I just kept saying "no", over and over, while working. Once the base was done, it was easier to say 'yes' to some ideas, or at least sketch them out.

We came in second place, out of about 20 teams that started the Friday night. I chalk about 80% of it up to the focus/constraints and ability to adhere to those.

+1 opting into this constraint is like putting rocket fuel into my productivity.

If it's a biggish place, I think hackatons should take place during work hours. I knew a place where hackatons were 3 days in the week during work hours (technically you could stay after, but as it was a competition it felt partly like cheating).

One of the point to make it work was to have it focused on somewhat viable or useful ideas (you could submit stupid stuff as well, but not in categories with prizes), so the company gets it's share of benefits from the event without having to screw the participants.

In a way it's like condensing a few weeks of "20% time" into a few days, and not "come to work for free during the weekend, it will be so fun"

The reason I don't like articles like these - although I actually agree with a lot of her points - is because the term "hackathon" now covers such a wide variety of events, and not all of them have the characteristics she describes.

For example,

> You can tell me all you like about how collaborative the atmosphere of your event is, but if you are awarding prizes for the “best X”, you just sound hypocritical. If you want me to believe the event is collaborative, don’t make it a competition.

I fully agree with this point and wish more hackathons didn't have judges and prizes. But some don't - I watched the presenting of a tech music hack weekend once, and there were no judges. They gave prizes out entirely at random - and there were some iPads, good prizes to! The atmosphere was great.

I've also been at hackathons that had great food that wasn't pizza, and hackathons where they encouraged ppl to leave at 6pm.

But I think we need to be careful not to tar all "hackathons" with one brush here. It's interesting that people are now using different words like "Hackstuff" from the article (another reason ppl use different words is that the word "hack" tends to put non tech people off massively) and I'm not sure where this leaves the usage and common accepted definition of "hackathon".

"because the term ... now covers such a wide variety of events, and not all of them have the characteristics she describes."

AKA its agile.

Incoming rant:

>>> They’re unhealthy

I totally agree. I love good food and a good nights sleep. I left the high sugar, high caffeine, junk food diet at University. Just the thought of it makes me cringe now. I've also been trying to fix my destroyed sleeping pattern due to University night life and after two months its finally returning to normal.

>>> Competition, meh.

Another good point. I'm a competitive person at heart but I don't see any reason to be competitive over low - mediocre products built in two days. I want to build products that I'm proud of.

Why does everybody think that you generally build good products in an insanely short amount time?Why sacrifice your health over something you won't be 100% proud of. Why are we in such a rush?

>>> A welcoming environment for people of all skill and confidence levels, with opportunity for mentorship, learning, and working at your own pace.

This. I'm still new to the software development sector as a fresh out of college graduate and to be frank, my confidence levels are low because I see everybody else doing amazing things that I wish I could do now.

A mentor would be a major plus. Having someone guiding you on the right track is seriously overlooked.Of course you will sometimes fail and the road will be bumpy but at least a mentor will make it a little easier and avoid common pitfalls

I'm a thinker, I hate rushing into things; its like building with a poor foundation. I prefer to think, research, think again before implementing an idea.

As with every hobby, hackathons are great for some people and not so great for others. I personally, enjoy a lot of the things the author said. I love moving around eating good food, lots of water, good sleep and a lot of exercise. Does that make me a bad developer because I don't fit this stereotype developer?

The worst part is when a company expects you to have gone (or go to) to hackathons in order for you to get a job. It really says a lot about what the kind of people they hire and what kind of company they are.

You have to take the long road - the people producing amazing stuff didn't get there fresh out of college. I had similar feelings as recently as a year ago - today marks two years as a software engineer for me, and I'm finally at a point where I'm not worried.

You will get there if you invest in yourself - learn new technologies, hop into IRC & ask questions, and go to meetups and talk with knowledgeable professionals.

Thanks for the advice and encouragement. I am definitly going to invest in myself and take time to improve, its just that when you look at Show HN, you begin to think your years behind everybody else.

On mothers not coming to hackathons: at Museomix[1] events we have at least 50% of women and many moms. Anecdotally, I clearly remember that at the very first Museomix in 2011 Nathalie, a participant, had a 3 months old daughter at home. Her dad was keeping care of her.

Museomix last 3 whole days, is probably beyond the traditional hackathon (in the sense that devs are only a part of the teams. 1/6th to be precise).

I guess the absence of moms is rather a question of general gender imbalance and culture of the event. [1]http://museomix.org

I'm a mother of two young children and was a bit puzzled by the gender issue. Now we are past the breastfeeding stage, my husband is just as capable of looking after our children as me (and when my first was very tiny, I took him to a tech conference and the committee were very helpful and found me somewhere private to feed him). Doing these things at weekends is a hobby and having a family is going to get in the way of that, but don't see that affects women any more than men and it's a decision you make when you decide to have a family.

They haven't been open to the public (yet), but at Khan Academy all ours have been "healthy hackathons."

Have personally loved it. Eating and sleeping well required. We even bring in healthier snacks than normal and force people out at midnight.

More here if interested: http://hackweek.khanacademy.org http://bjk5.com/post/56123354891/how-we-ran-the-second-khan-...

> Why can’t I work on an existing project?

Man I'd love to join a hackathon where you are encouraged to work on your personal projects, and you get to share it with other attendees, and they get to share theirs with you, and hopefully someone finds your project interesting and then it's not a 1 man project anymore or vice versa.

Most (if not all) hackathons in my country are sponsored by companies to try out their new api's, gather potential hires under one roof, or for investors/business people trying to find developers/co-founders.

> Most (if not all) hackathons in my country are sponsored by companies to try out their new api's, gather potential hires under one roof, or for investors/business people trying to find developers/co-founders.

This accurately describes every hackathon I've been to in San Francisco. (Facebook, Heroku, RackSpace...)

Hopefully I'm being Captain Obvious, but:

Using hackathons as a hiring tactic doesn't seem like a very smart idea, given how self-evidently discriminatory it is on the axes the OP describes.

>Using hackathons as a hiring tactic doesn't seem like a very smart idea, given how self-evidently discriminatory it is on the axes the OP describes.

Assuming that this is a problem for the companies in question. Personally, i agree with you: there ought to be Less Discrimination. I'm just wondering if a stereotypical SV outfit worries much about that.

You know you could run your own. They don't have to be big, all you need is place to stay, heat some food, an internet connection, some chairs and tables + some other room to put a bunch of blankets and sleeping bags.

Yeah I'm gonna bring it up next time I attend a meetup. :) Hopefully I'll find out something like it already happens and I just wasn't aware!

OpenBSD was one of the first projects to start hackatons. I think they even invented the term. The idea behind them is great and does not have many of the downsides indicated: just get together and work on things that require more 'bandwidth' than e-mail or IRC or sub-projects where you can quickly progress when tackling it with a couple of other people. Besides that, it's a good occasion to meet fellow project members, have a barbecue, and talk all night.

However, most hackatons that I see in my mailbox are completely different. They are often:

- A way for a company to get some app programmed as quickly and cheaply as possible (you win a price and we get all rights).

- A way for companies to recruit. Both technical (which developers are good) and non-technical (who is willing to give up their life if we ask them to) datapoints can be gathered with ease.

> The idea behind them is great and does not have many of the downsides indicated: just get together and work on things that require more 'bandwidth' than e-mail or IRC or sub-projects where you can quickly progress when tackling it with a couple of other people. Besides that, it's a good occasion to meet fellow project members, have a barbecue, and talk all night.

That kind of meeting is more generally referred to as a sprint, isn't it?

Depends on which genesis of the word 'hackathon' you prefer.

OpenBSD and Sun both did 'hackathons' in June 1999, OpenBSD's more of the high-bandwidth collaboration type, Sun's more of the 'promote our APIs' sorts.

- A way for companies to recruit. Both technical (which developers are good) and non-technical (who is willing to give up their life if we ask them to) datapoints can be gathered with ease.

A company who recruits developers based on sub par products built in an unconventional way is one I would like to stay away from. Its screams "we are a sweatshop".

Yeah, it is really sad how the term has been so heavily co-opted that few people even know what an actual hackathon is.

It just occurred to me that Hackathons which stress on the caffeine-induced sleepless continuous-production aspect of programming are the opposite of what Rich Hickey termed "Hammock driven development" : http://data-sorcery.org/2010/12/29/hammock-driven-dev/

I guess the "furious activity IS productivity" approach of such hackathons is appropriate if you're building the next great website where the assembly of components is the challenge but they are probably not great for solving open-ended problems such as designing an algorithm or figuring out how to solve a puzzle (a business puzzle, a programming puzzle, a life puzzle).

The description of "Hammock-driven" development is very similar to how one has to function in academia, where the problems are hard and a lot of time thinking is necessary.

I also like to operate this way - the solutions created in such moments of brilliance just cannot be reproduced while in constant states of stress.

I think replacing the hammock step with walking would be a big improvement. There's quite a lot of support for the idea that walking helps you think.

So what are hackathons good for?

They're great for MBA-bots who want young, naive developers to crank out a barely functional proof-of-concept for free.

Agreed, it's really that simple.

Hackathons make a lot of sense to the people that profit directly from it and/or whose job is little more than babbling buzzwords and "getting the team on fire!!", which you only have time to do if you're not bashing your brains pulling all-nighters programming (no objection in doing this for fun, obviously)

AKA why I don't like $COMMON_PASTTIME. This could easily be "Why I don't like Hand-gliding", or "Why I don't like book-clubs"

>Domestic and carer responsibilities are unevenly distributed, which means women are more likely to be too busy to attend hackathons than men are.

Domestic responsibilities are unevenly distributed. This is bad. It has nothing to do with Hackathons.

>Attending a weekend-long event means massively rearranging my life.

Has this guy never been on holiday?

>if I spend two long days in poor lighting and poor ventilation, sitting hunched over my laptop at a meeting table in an uncomfortable chair, eating pretty average catering food or pizza [...] I feel like crap.

If that's an issue, bring your own food. Drink more water.

Wow great comment. I couldnt understand what all the peeves had to do with a hackathon specifically. This is suppose d to be a fun event really.

> Has this guy never been on holiday?

The author is a woman.

Presumably, if you're going on vacation, you're massively rearranging your life for something that you want to do. In the case of employers who hold these mandatory hackathons, you're going to put some of your employees in a tough spot.

It's one thing to pay for a babysitter so the parents can go out and have a night to themselves, it's another thing to have to pay for a babysitter because you're going to an event that forces you to stay awake for 24 hours, which you don't even want to do in the first place. If you don't work well in hackathon conditions, then it's a total waste of time and money.

Where does it say that the post is about mandatory hackathons organized by a company for its employees?

Also, I think you're missing the point of the parent post. The point is that the balance of pros and cons of a hackathon is a subjective matter. Some people enjoy their intensity and challenging conditions, others hate the inconvenience. You can observe this for hiking and other demanding hobbies.

Bottom line is that if a hackathon, hiking, etc happens to be a way you love spending your free time, you will want to rearrange your life to participate.

I believe we're talking about two separate issues then.

The only hackathons I've participated in are the type I spoke about (mandatory by company for employees) and are the only ones I'm familiar with. In the context of a work obligation, I understand the issues with childcare, etc.

If we're talking about events that are taking place outside of work, then I view them like I would view a running event or concert or any other elective activity: go if you want, stay home if you don't. In that context, I agree with you and hadn't considered that hackathons like that exist outside of the workplace.

>Domestic responsibilities are unevenly distributed. This is bad. It has nothing to do with Hackathons.

Note that the statement is "Domestic and career responsibilities". No it is not bad, it is just fine. I'm quite happy with working less out of the house and working more in it. And so are most women who choose to do so. Which is why it has to do with hackathons and other events. If you want more women to show up, child care is something to consider. Saying "oh, just change your life so that you and your husband are both less happy" does not solve the issue, and would still leave such events with fewer parents in attendance.

Biggest worry for me is impostor syndrome. I'd be terrified of turning up and being absolutely useless and achieving nothing. I don't go to conferences for the same reason.

This was my worry too until my first one.

Even if you don't have full mastery of the tech being used, asking the _right_ questions can help a lot!

There are a lot of people who feel like that, me included (at times I kinda expect my parents to tell me that I have been playing grown up long enough and that it is time to come home and go to bed at my old bed time).

My best recommendation is to go there anyway, and you will see that you can more than you will ever imagine (useful advice, right? just telling you to do it anyway). Also remember that it is absolutely okay to be scared out of your wits (relevant blog post http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2007/0...) and do it anyway.

Just by being there you get aligned with the culture of that project and exposed to the current challenges. That alone has value in preparing you for contributions, or allowing you to decide the project isn't a good fit.

We're all humans and we all have some fears and insecurities. One practical suggestion: organize a private hackathon with people you trust like your friends or colleagues. This might help to build confidence for larger events.

-> They exclude people with lives and responsibilities <-

This is the strongest point.

I will contribute to your project, I will not spend the night drinking Mountain Dew and eating pizza.

I didn't appreciate the insinuation that people who DO attend hackathons have no lives.

As a developer of Libreoffice, I would love to go to a hackathon, but only if there wasn't much competitiveness. Also, it would help if I lived in Europe, but I live in Australia and (unless I'm mistaken) I'm the only active Australian developer of Libreoffice.

I've attended a couple of local hackathons run by http://www.bathhacked.org/ Won a category and overall at the initial one (in a team) and won a category at the latter one (on my own).

The initial hack was 1 day and the latter 2 days. I'd guess I did a similar amount of work in both but felt far more relaxed over a 2 day event by keeping the hack objectives small. They are still mentally tiring experiences and you need time to recover.

Negotiating with my wife to create completely free weekends while juggling child care was also relatively hard.

I was then invited to a hack in Bristol a couple of weekends ago, but just could not make it because of family commitments. There was also an element of distance (only 12 miles away but right in the centre of the city) however was offered the ability to hack remotely and just come in to present. I just could not do it due to family commitments AND knowing this would be in effect working back to back weeks without a break.

I do agree that prizes were less important to me than the 'fun' of doing a hack. To win was just icing on the top.

The disappointment in a hackathon is that most of what you create is throwaway and the idea of after a hackathon, having workshops that develop and deliver a product is very very appealing.

Hackathons are awesome. I try to do like 6 or 7 a year. And I'm married and in my mid 30s.

To take the OP's points one-by-one:

- Hackathons are worth the commitment. They're a fast, efficient way to try out 1) new frameworks and APIs, 2) new employees/cofounders, 3) new ideas.

- Hackathons only exclude people with "lives" who don't choose to make the event a priority. Hackathons filter out timid and less motivated people (and those two attributes are related) and you're generally left with pragmatic people who will make it through the weekend.

- The OP is right. The inconvenience isn't evenly distributed. Life isn't fair.

- Hackathons are only as unhealthy as you make them. Gardening can also be quite unhealthy if you don't wear sunscreen.

- Competition is a positive force, and the extrinsic motivation of judgement and a deadline are real, and good for the hack you produce.

- Since this is a competition, you can't work on a preexisting product any more than you could start a marathon a kilometers up the road.

- They're not just toys. Take a look at POWr.io and Zaarly, both of which came out of hackathons. There are many others, and if anyone knows of some of the top of their head, please reply with them.

I think it's great that people are coming together to help code on your gardening project. Hackathons may not be right for you, but they are definitely right for me and the dozens of ambitious people I've coded with at hackathons over the years.

I think another important point is that Hackathons are what you make it.

I like going to them to meet new people and try out a new idea. If I want to fall asleep, I can. I'm not "forced" into doing anything I don't want to do.

I usually work 14 hours or so, go to sleep, wake up, shower, then work again - doing this for 2 or 3 days hardly makes me feel like crap or messes with my sleep schedule.

Hackathons filter out people with shit to do. "Timid" people are not filtered out, except insofar as any competitive environment does. Similarly, "less motivated" people are not filtered out, because it is so, so much easier to crank on something for a weekend, damn the results, than to work incrementally on building something great. One takes a short burst of effort. The other takes significant long-term will. Finding the former to be a waste of resources is not a lack of ambition and certainly not a lack of pragmatism.

It doesn't sound like they have been to very many. The majority of the people at a hackathon actually go home at night. Quite a few don't even stay the full day. It's perfectly OK. I used to stay from Friday night to Sunday night coding the whole time at the longer events like Startup Weekend, but after I got married I go home for few hours each night at the wife's request. No one has complained.

I don't think most people expect to win either. For most it is just a fun way to try out APIs or other ideas and work with friends and make new friends. It's typically very easy to grab something like three.js, the Uber API, Meteor, etc. and hack on it all weekend and then if you want to integrate it into your real project later you'll see that you learned a lot hacking. I've picked up lots of new coworkers from hackathons too, so it is valuable for recruiting.

The value of the hackathon is not the prize money times your chance of winning it minus the time spent. You can benefit from the hackathon even if you don't win. With their current attitude, I don't think the author could benefit from going, however.

^ This is really important to get. Hackathon isn't some required thing you absolutely have to do, or even finish for that matter.. Its a great way to get your feet wet not only in whatever you're hacking with/on, but just to meet the community.

If you're going to go to try to win, that's great.. but people shouldn't feel that there is some sort of responsibility to be there, and to give it your all. I have left hackathons because of other commitments, or I just got bored.

This. While I have won (and placed) in hackathons, I never took them as this super competitive challenge, I didn't expect to win. The teams I've been on always went home and got some rest. To me hackathons are a fun way to explore new things and meet interesting people.

I only was at one Hackathon, yet, and the article pretty much summarizes my thoughts. Instead of working on the Hackathon I did some pull requests to actual FOSS projects. One guy actually presented the thing he did for a FOSS project.

Aren't there hackathons from like Mozilla, Django, Rails communities who just meet to get some specific set of features, bugs or tests out of the way?

Those are usually called “sprints”.

Thanks! Very good to know! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprint_%28software_development%...)

I've been to a few hackathons over recent years. On occasion I've found them very useful. Forcing yourself to come up with a good idea that you or a small team can build quickly is a great exercise. They've also helped improve my public speaking and presentation skills when it comes to technical subjects.

I will say that you often see quite dull entries from people attempting to make commercially viable products, and that those entries often do well with the judges. I think the participants get more out of it if they go all out and use their imagination, without worrying about the end result. I'd prefer if the prizes at some hackfests were biased towards creative thinking rather than producing an MVP for a product the hackfest organiser can commercialize. This would also make it less like "work at a weekend."

If you don't like them you don't attend them it is as simple. For me hackathons are great place to meet people with familiar interests and share experience.

I concur.

I Landed my last job by meeting someone at a hackathon. I found my current mid/long-term project doing another hackathon with the same person where we had the opportunity to develop a prototype and see that it worked.

I like hackathons because it's the only way for me to have two full days to actually _make_ something.

The author is building alternatives: civic hacking meetups. So for people who hack the institutions around them, it never has to be as simple as going or not.

Personally, this cultural critique is far more interesting than any hackathon I've seen. I was even at a company which hilariously tried using hackathons to pay off technical debt, instead of simply scheduling it. (The damned Scrum Master was surprised I had no intention of staying during weekends; somehow he thought this plan would overjoy me, since I claimed we mismanaged technical debt.)

I've never heard of this kind of hackaton. These sound like startup-thons. All those I've attended have been more in the spirit "come and hack on whatever you want, discuss ideas, show of your work" which I think has been great.

I've been to several hackathons, and I have a hard time relating to the article.

The hackathons I've been initiated by some open source communities (sometimes sponsored by a company, but that company wasn't involved in the topics), and were mostly not about the hacking, but about high-bandwidth communication between folks that usually only converse via bug trackers, IRC and email.

There are no prizes. Often no new projects come out, but existing ones are advanced.

I get the impression that there are two kinds of hackathons, the commercially motivated, and the community one.

IMHO it makes a lot of sense to distinguish those two when talking about hackathons.

Does 'not for everyone" cover this?

Exercise is a decent metaphor. Gyms are "for everyone." Some people like them more than others, but most people can stand 30m in a gym. Few people really love them.

Swamp runs are not for everyone. Some people love them. They get wet, mucky and have a silly fun time. Try to force your wife who doesn't want to swam run to swamp run and you will soon have an unhappy wet wife.

Talking about stuff online pushes everything a little further into Oscar Wilde manifesto territory. I'm think I'm doing this right now.

BTW, is the "Why I ___" format an Oscar Wilde Homage?

I've been to two "Major League" hackathons (CalHacks and YHack) and really enjoyed my experiences at both as a current undergrad studying CS. Not often do I get the chance to meet 1000+ people my age that are interested in exactly what I'm interested. It's a great time for meeting new people, and maintaining relationships after the weekend is done. I landed an internship this Summer in SF from building a hack and talking to engineers, so I'd say it's been an incredibly valuable experience.

I'm a Hacker and a Dad, and I rarely get to Hackathons unless I'm randomly there by chance. That happens often enough that I have an opinion about Hackathons, only because I am a frequent attender of Hackerspaces.

As a Dad, my time is very valuable; my kids do not suffer for my nerdy nature. In fact, my first hackerspace is the one I share with the boys. The second hackerspace is Metalab (http://metalab.at/), and I'm a social attender - i.e. I don't really commit, but rather just attend. To be honest, after a week of watching the 5 and 7 year olds, its a great thing to see the 20-something year olds, the 30-something year olds, and maybe even a few teens, hacking away on something in the social cornucopia that is your average, every day Hackerspace.

Here in Vienna, I sometimes run into other hacker-Dad's, and one for one either have other commitments, socially borne, and therefore they are mutable, or else they have the long-term view. What matters though, is that all of these hacker-Dads share the desire to pass it on. Its a wonderful thing indeed to see a 4 or 5 or 6-year generation doing amazing things with the end-results of their Dads (or Mums) few hours spent, here and there, soldering .. hacking .. tweaking .. twiddling.

tl;dr :- Home is the first hackerspace, or at least it should be.

Amen.

I am 20 years old and I share almost every single point as in the article. If not every single one honestly.. :P

Oh boo-hoo, "it's really inconvenient and unhealthy and it's competitive and I'm a damp rag." Man that read sucked the life out of me.

"I have a very fulfilling life, full of hobbies, friends and shit to do. Your hobby sucks! Don't you have anything better to do with your life, other than eating pizza and drinking caffeine and having fun coding?"

I can also relate to the article because some hackathons that I have been to feel like you're building this thing that you know you are going to throw away. And events where you are able to use a new language you're under time pressure to just get it working rather than understand it. I'd rather spend a whole day on my own projects.

I've been to two other hackathons that are focused on attracting girls and women into the STEM arena (http://www.stemettes.org/events) but they don't exclude guys. The idea is more around splitting the participants into groups of different ability and helping them build something. I really enjoyed that the event is about learning/mentoring more than about wining prizes and I found it really rewarding to help kids that had some interest in coding.

The events are quite different from the 48 hour hacks because they are also catering for 6 year olds with short attention spans, but it felt like I was helping to show that coding is accessible to anyone of any age.

If you're a coder in London I highly recommend volunteering with them.

I've worked with teams on 48-hour film projects, in which you create a short (7 min) film in a weekend, quite comparable to a hackathon. On a team of 20 people, we charge two participants fulltime with organising catering: healthy meals, snacks, etc. It really does wonders for the motivation and preventing cranky reactions from the stressed-out director of photography on Sunday afternoon

I agree with all the points, and yet at the same time I like these hackathon jam thingies.

I have a real life with real responsibilities and I live deep in the countryside to so I just don't get hackathons happening around me.

But I've started to make 'me' time to go meetups, game-programming jams, 'make' kind of things and that kind of stuff. And I love it, even if just a spectator and just for a few hours.

Along those lines I recently invited myself to look around a real rocket project (I'm an armchair enthusiast) and here's my pictures: http://williamedwardscoder.tumblr.com/post/102953980123/home...

I think that kind of project is like a years-long hackathon if you squint from a sufficiently high altitude.

Internal hackathons can work. We recently had one where we basically shut down most of the company for two days (it was a Thursday-Friday).

People could opt-in or do their regular work. They could stay late if they wanted but it wasn't required. It worked well because no one was surrendering a weekend.

Not sure if this post mentioned acquiring customers, but a hackathon can be a good sales channel.

Our last hackathon landed us a fortune 500 company as a customer. They were on the judging panel.

I think we were disqualified from winning due to adding new features to an existing app.

I'm 39 and a half too. I hear you. Maybe it is an age thing!

Im 24 and think he brings up good points. So maybe age is not a thing?

I am 23 and I agree with the article

22 here, and I agree with most, if not all the points.

She, but anyway.

Hackathons are like LAN-parties for coders. I visited both.

4 person lans and 600 person lans.

3 person hackathons and 100 person hackathons.

When I do a lan with friends, we are 4 - 8 people and play games for fun, when I went to a 600 people lan, there were competitions and prizes.

Same goes for hackathons.

You can do your own thing if you don't like whats going on.

Hell, you could even do a big hackathon, like I did a 600 person lan once and make your own rules.

I stopped going to such big events for the reasons listed and did funny small ones with my friends.

There's always the option of not taking the hackathons that seriously. The one I did some stuff for I popped in in the morning, found out what it was about, went home a wrote some code for about 6 hours and then popped back the next day to present. My team mates were non coders. We didn't do to bad though not in the top 10%. It was quite fun though. I'm noticeably over 39.5 and think I'll skip the all night there stuff.

Yes, people with responsibilities are excluded, but that is life. You don't see parents of young children out clubbing till 4am. Younger people go out clubbing because you can feel shit the next day without the kids wanting attention. Not being able to go to a hackathon for a whole weekend is something you'd have to give up too if you had other priorities.

Yes, that's true, but having an entire group of similar like minded people may not be a recipe for producing the best software.

That's fine if your hackathon is optional, but many workplaces make them mandatory or they exist in a kind of gray area where you're not required to go, but it's "highly recommended" you go if you want to continue to advance in the office.

And sure, if your employer puts you in that kind of situation, it's shitty, but not everyone has the ability to just up and quit for greener pastures.

What I've found to be much more successful are weekly Hack Nights. I gave a talk about it earlier this year: http://confreaks.com/videos/4140-cascadiaruby2014-cloning-th...

Looking on the other side of the coin, can anyone mention any positives (personal perspective of course) from attending a hackathon?

Personally, I would rather contribute to a FOSS project rather than getting involve in hackathon.

You can meet people.

If you don't like the experience, assuming your employer isn't punishing you by forcing attendance, you just walk away if you don't like it. Assuming you're not walking away from your job, you're walking away from little more than an entry fee (if any) and some (likely) free food.

Also theres no interview process (again, assuming your boss isn't an evil bastard forcing you to attend as a condition of employment). So not knowing anything about hbase is no disqualifier from attending and being "the hbase guy". Although if you try that unless you're a true genius, or very lucky, don't expect many job offers LOL. Very few job reqs for "candidate will demonstrate 48 hours experience with GNU R" or whatever.

A big part of when I go to hackathons is meeting new people, coming up with new interesting idea, learning from other's idea. It's a good learning experience, and I get to network with people.

I wanted to write this for a month or so. Nice to see that I am not alone.

One point I wanted to point was, they just encourage you to remember you code and write it all at once. They are kind of memory testing.

The best is when your PM goes to one and then comes in on Monday expecting you to implement all your features by 1AM if he gets the Pizzas in...

IMO it breeds bad habits of coding, planning and management...

I would be very suspicious of finding a job offer at a hackathon. A company who wants workers that are willing to go without sleep to code are just looking for naive talent to exploit.

They're good for young people. When I was young I would have found them inspiring.

+1000 usually hackathon are the extension of a stereotype that a developer should make a fantastic app in 24h. I can understand about designers and business models, but to project and develop a real app from scratch take a lot of time.. if you don't use pre existent code

Next from the author, "Why I don't like startups."

meh

No sleep, constant work, crappy pay, crappy code and you get pizza. Is this your idea of startups? If so, get the hell out of that startup if you are a salaried employee!

Two years ago. http://infotrope.net/2012/10/29/no-i-still-dont-want-to-work...

Agree.

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