
Ask HN: The rising “Hackathon Hackers” culture - haskellvilain
	I am an american CS student that goes to (a lot) of hackathons.
The purpose of this post is to get feedback&#x2F;opinions from people that are outside the &quot;Hackathon Hackers&quot; bubble to determine whether or not my rant is founded and if the issues I am highlighting are characteristic of the tech industry.<p>It bothers me to see how obsessed with success this generation of &quot;hackers&quot; seems to be. I have met people who were justifying censorship, population control and unfair business practices because they could benefit from them someday. I was expecting a little more regard to civil liberties and ethics from students and so called &quot;hackers&quot;.<p>People win by making &quot;cool&quot; apps (Uber for X) whereas technical hacks are totally ignored.<p>I am glad that people are motivated to succeed but this lead to some of them taking themselves very seriously. Often to the expense of ethics.<p>&quot;There is such ignorance in this world about who we are. We are not criminals. We are innovators. We create things. We change the world.[...]&quot;<p>And this is one example among many other from a guy who has never engineered anything. Weeks are spent planning for their new &quot;great project&quot; with at the end little to no execution.<p>Students who believe to be 1000x SE because they can stick two APIs together and use bootstrap end-up to be very condescending older engineers.<p>This &quot;bro&quot;&#x2F;&quot;my framework is the best&quot;&#x2F;&quot;Make money fast&quot; culture that stinks a little bit IMO.<p>Hackathons are great to try out new technologies, meet new people and outreach to demographics that are traditionally under-represented in CS but I don&#x27;t like where this is headed.<p>Like HS there is &quot;cool kids&quot; who are &quot;Student Entrepreneur&quot; or &quot;Innovator, UX Artist blah blah&quot;, &quot;RoR Genius&quot; etc... and the rest of the world.<p>My apologies if this post is a little bit ranty, I hope to get other perspectives on this.
======
GolfyMcG
We hired a dev that's very much like you described. We "knew" he was smart
because he did well in some Hackathons. Had built some cool projects on his
flashy portfolio. Went to the same university we want to, which is a top
university in the world. Had good grades at said University. etc.

He had all the markings of being a fantastic intern for us.

About half way through his internship we had to fire him. He lacked the
attention span for a long term, rigorous software development project. We
later hired someone whom we evaluated very differently and it has been
incredible. He's doing a fantastic job. Constantly questions our opinions
about software and pushes the boundaries of our depth of understanding.

To add to this, we knew the fired intern went on to another startup to keep
doing whatever it is he thinks he's doing. The founders of that company ended
up telling us the same exact problems were happening with them. Don't worry
about these "hackers" and what they're doing. They'll all end up getting a
reality check at some point. If they frustrate you, then just remember that
the best revenge is living well.

~~~
yoklov
FWIW, In the games industry it's fairly common practice to totally ignore
anything a potential programmer made in a game jam (unless they carried it on
afterwards).

Feels somewhat equivalent, even though it's probably for different reasons.

~~~
kevinwang
Why is it that it's common practice to ignore anything made in a game jam?

~~~
yoklov
What ryanthejuggler said is true (and mainly why even impressive ones aren't
worth much), but mainly because game jam projects are usually unimpressive and
made of gluing a bunch of things together.

Totally ignore is probably stronger than I mean, I take a look, but I don't
think it's ever strongly effected my decision.

I also can't speak for the entire industry, this is just what I've seen where
I've worked.

------
jmcohen
Penn's hackathon is by application only. I think this is pretty silly. Here's
a quote from a Medium post by one of the event organizers announcing this
year's low acceptance rate of 30% [1]:

    
    
      The people that got in had almost all either won major hackathons before or 
      worked on multiple projects that each blew our socks off in a spectacular fashion.
    

I'm just trying to imagine these kids at Penn sitting around a table
deliberating which applicants have the most "major" hackathon victories and
most "blew our socks off" projects:

Organizer #1: This team looks promising. They placed second at the State U
hackathon last spring!

#2: That's not impressive. Everyone knows that StateUHacks is a third-tier
hackathon. A monkey with a rotary phone could win the Twilio prize there. Who
do you think we are, Cornell? This is UPenn; we accept elite hackers only.
Only the cream of the crop from HackMIT is good enough to don Dropbox t-shirts
with us.

#1: Ok, how about this girl? The side project she submitted under the
"Supplemental Materials" section of our application looks pretty good.

#2: As IF! I'd give that side project a 4/10\. No infinite scrolling? What a
waste of my time. And look at that .ly TLD. It's like, "HELLO, 2012 is calling
and asking for its domain name back," am I right?

[1] [https://medium.com/pennapps-x/pennapps-x-application-
stats-6...](https://medium.com/pennapps-x/pennapps-x-application-
stats-655f9a04f991)

~~~
golergka
To be fair, if you're criticising selective hackathon idea, you have to go all
the way criticise the whole competitiveness of hackathons altogether. Because
"selective hackathons" are just a logical continuation of the idea that
hackathon can be won. Personally, I don't yet have a definite opinion on the
whole matter, but you certainly can't be OK with one thing and be opposed to
it's logical conclusion.

~~~
jmcohen
Yes, I think that the idea that a hackathon can be "won" is silly too.

~~~
aroman
As a member of the team that "won" that hackathon, I agree.

Interestingly, one of my least-favorite parts about "doing well" at hackathons
like these is that I don't get the opportunity to go around to other tables
and see what everyone has else made, and talk with them about it. Sometimes,
really cool projects and people go under-noticed (I've been there as well).

~~~
argonaut
But would you go to a hackathon with no prizes?

~~~
sb8244
Another hackathon attendant here.

I would attend a university sponsored hackathon that had little / no prizes. I
would not attend a corporate sponsored one with bad prizes.

For example, AT&T recently held a hackathon in Atlanta. The prizes were
meager, and it was clear to me that ulterior motives were present. Why would
anyone attend a hackathon like that is beyond me?

~~~
bbissoon
I took home first prize at a AT&T hackathon here in Houston and I thought the
exact same thing.

A lot of corporate ones are set up with contracts that leave your work at
their mercy to continue without you. Unless there's a prize - it isn't worth
it with these types of arrangements.

For social good, civil, city government, university etc - I'll do it with no
expectations just to make a difference.

------
fsk
>Students who believe to be 1000x SE because they can stick two APIs together
and use bootstrap end-up to be very condescending older engineers.

Yeah, I've noticed that younger programmers started talking down to me like my
experience is worthless. Then they ask me to debug their code for them.

The frustrating part is that, when I interview, my experience in now-obsolete
languages has a value of $0. My skill for understanding business requirements
and debugging is mostly transferable, but that doesn't seem to be valued. I
understand valuing my experience in older languages at a discount, but I don't
understand why it gets a value of zero or negative.

I never saw the point of hackathons, because I'm interested in projects that
take more than a couple of days to finish. You can do "Uber for X" in a
weekend, but not something substantial or truly original.

~~~
DrJokepu
I don't know about your specific case but it's typically not the presence old
technologies that devalue a resume; it's their presence AND the lack of new
technologies that does that, because it indicates that the candidate doesn't
think it's important to keep himself up to date regarding the latest
developments in his profession, which is a huge red flag.

Just this week we've interviewed a lady for a development position who had a
very long career and had experience with not just old technologies such as, I
don't know, Delphi, but she taught herself new things as well such as ASP.NET
MVC and Node. She is a mother of two yet she has managed to find time to keep
her skills up-to-date. Obviously we have offered her a senior position pretty
much immediately.

~~~
fsk
The problem is that there's 100 new things, and it's hard to tell what's going
to last and what's just a fad.

Also, once you have a job using X, there isn't much opportunity to get work
experience in Y.

I've also have several recruiters say "Learning stuff on your own doesn't
count. You need actual work experience in Y for employers to value it." That's
hard when you have a job where they only use (somewhat-obsolete) X.

------
jedanbik
Honestly? You're hanging out with a bunch of ambitious, entry level devs,
probably all college students. This is what you should expect from a crowd
like this. Take what you need and leave the rest. For more depth and maturity,
go to your favorite language meetups and attend/participate in talks from/with
folks with some industry experience under their belt. Kudos for having
perspective enough to ask for feedback about this. You'll be fine.

~~~
richardjordan
I think a key part of the question though is the fact that it didn't used to
be just entry level devs and college students at hackathons.

~~~
jcoffland
No? Most serious programmers are too busy programming to have time to blow on
a hackathon.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Well, it depends on hackaton. Most of the hackatons now are commercial events,
designed either to milk participants for free work or promote some third party
services.

I remeber when hackatons were made by programmers for programmers, when they
were about hacking on actually cool projects and having fun. Those hackatons
had some serious devs participating, because hell, even if you're doing this
professionally, you need to take a break every now and then and do something
just for fun.

~~~
AndyFang98
mlh.io

------
parfe
1\. Get a PAID internship

2\. Get a part time job

3\. Graduate

4\. Get a full time job

5\. Do things for fun that don't involve computers.

The fact I happen to interact with X framework in Y language, running on Z
environment has zero relevence in my life. I more quickly ignore people
talking about Ruby/Python/Javascript running Rails/Django/Node than the
homeless person trying to wash my windshield.

You get too involved in tech communities and you forget what the real world
looks like. I've literally met better people while delivering HIV test kits
than while dealing with HPC systems. Find good people rather than defaulting
to people like you who make money.

~~~
mden
And out of curiosity, how do you resolve your statements with the fact that
you have over 5k karma and over 1k posts on this site alone?

~~~
geofft
Akrasia? :)

------
aurora72
First off, the sentence of "the people who were justifying censorship,
population control and unfair business practices because they could benefit
from them someday" echoed back the news I remember from 2012 or so which was
like "In America, half of the lowest earners are opposed to raising taxes on
the rich, because they reckon they will someday get rich and raising rich
taxes would mean their children would be deprived of having the possibility of
getting rich someday" (If someone could find the link of that news I'd be
grateful)

As for the hackers, let's see the distinction between the "hacker" and the
"problem solver" Richard Stallman did not only hacked software, he solved the
problem of software being unaccessable to everyone. Rich Hickey did not only
hacked software, he solved the problem of Lisp being unaccessable to newer
generations and platforms. The founders of YCombinator didn't only hacked
software they solved the problem of eCommerce.

I actually love the people who stick two APIs together and use bootstrap end-
ups to show something interesting because they at least 'do' something. But
the problem solvers are always the superior ones and I eventually spend more
time following them because I myself have to solve problems in my life :)

~~~
pgeorgi
Regarding the notion of not raising taxes on the rich, that's coming up every
now and again.

From a 1976 musical, for example: "Don't forget that most men with nothing
would rather protect the possibility of becoming rich than face the reality of
being poor." (Peter Stone)

~~~
glhaynes
"Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as
an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." —
[likely not] John Steinbeck

~~~
golergka
I guess from US you see that as something negative; but from outside this
culture, it actually seems to be one of the best american qualities, to be
honest. You're really lucky if you don't know what's it like to live in a
country where all the poor people are certain that things will never change
for the best and therefore do absolutely nothing about it.

~~~
bildung
_You 're really lucky if you don't know what's it like to live in a country
where all the poor people are certain that things will never change for the
best and therefore do absolutely nothing about it._

And yet the social mobility in the USA is quite low compared to other
developed countries: "Several large studies of mobility in developed countries
in recent years have found the US among the lowest in mobility."
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socio-
economic_mobility_in_the_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socio-
economic_mobility_in_the_United_States#Comparisons_with_other_countries))

Empirically those countries with a highly built-out welfare system (e.g. those
where the economic pressure on the poor individual is lowest) see higher
probabilities of those poor people working themselves out of poverty.

------
gailees
Hackathon Hackers is an eclectic group of over 13,000 individuals -- I started
it 8 months ago to create an inclusive, welcoming community for up-and-coming
hackers.

People come from tons of different backgrounds and this community provides a
space where radical ideas are welcome.

You'll definitely find some people with interesting, sometimes scary, views
but that by no means defines the entire group of people. "Hackathon Hackers"
has over 100 active subgroups that explore a wide range of topics and
perspectives.

That said, by creating this space, the issues we face in tech, and in the
world at large, are more visible in HH than any other community I've ever been
a part of.

Improving the culture will be a never-ending pursuit and will take tens of
thousands of young hackers banding together to do so. The issues you pointed
out are very real.

It won't happen in a day, but we've come so far in just a few short months and
this is still just the start.

------
saul_goodman
A hackathon at a school is going to exist to further the adjenda of the school
which is fine, but not anything related to "hacker ethos". A hackathon at an
actual hackerspace however will be much closer to what you are after.

Some other folks brought up Startup Weekends. We have them in my town and I've
never seen them get anything off the ground. Some of the organizers tried to
cozy up to our hackerspace which is fine, but we really had nothing in common.
The reality is that Startup Weekends are stupid. It's a nice idea to get a
bunch of technical people and investors together to build something, but you
don't start a business worth pursuing by committee. You have a small number of
folks very focused on what they want and that builds momentum until it can
draw others in. By the time outsiders are being attracted there's usually a
solid idea there that people are contributing towards. A committee is going to
water an idea down until it's a shallow frank-n-beans version of the original
idea. The other possibility is that they end up making a new "Uber for X"
which never goes anywhere.

But someone with their wits about them can use this to networking opportunity
with local tallent. Just don't participate in the main project if you can
avoid it.

~~~
jhsu42
Hosted a Startup Weekend, can confirm.

A ton of it is muddled in politics and branding. I have yet to see many "big,
scalable" companies come out of the ones that have been hosted.

Getting developers is tough, and being the only developer on the organizing
team selling the event to other developers when they had free, more legit
hackathons made it an insane choice.

I will say that events that Code for America have hosted have been nice. They
seem as far as I can tell trying to change something a little more real than
the "Uber for X".

------
geofft
Take a look at the free software community (which is incidentally very well-
correlated with what the "hacker" community used to be 20-30 years ago, and
has much more of a claim to being the intellectual heirs of that group than
the hackathon crowd does or even the HN crowd does). There's a lot of focus on
ethics and civil liberties, and maybe a bit too little focus on effective PR
and on shipping, but it's very refreshing.

As a concrete suggestion, LibrePlanet
[https://libreplanet.org/2015/](https://libreplanet.org/2015/) is next weekend
at MIT, and free for students. Or see if there's a Debian group in your local
area.

------
carucez
Welcome to the future of CS. As technical fields cross into the phase of
commonly understood knowledge, the ability to exploit imbalances rises.
Opportunity exists everywhere, but we as insiders with our vast technical
knowledge are distracted by our awe of capability. We fail to exploit the low
hanging fruit that a capitalist might immediately sense. We would rather
pursue deeper knowledge within our domain to be masters of our craft.

People selling cell phone mods don't usually know anything about electrical
engineering, mechanical engineering, or manufacturing; yet they somehow can
pull millions of dollars of profits out of plastic cases and LED mods simply
by dangling a few slices of pizza in front of a hungry college student.

Point is, exploitation is everywhere -- don't be exploited, and computer
science is at the stage where it's simple enough to follow some rules and slap
a few APIs together to build a decent mash-up that's never existed before...
that a fraction of people are willing to pay for, and "make bank bro".

I hate it. It's not just you feeling this frustration. Just see the writing on
the wall, and know that app dev / pipelining of data feeds is going to be as
"easy" as programming a VCR in the 90's.

~~~
woah
Why is this a bad thing? Business people are good at selling things and making
money. This is what they do. If you are envious of their skills, learn how to
do it yourself. Get a low level sales job on commission and see what it's
like. I doubt it is as easy as you might think.

------
wiseleo
Reasons why I go:

1\. Get introduced to new technologies 2\. Get inspired to build something new
3\. Meet interesting people and help them debug code 4\. Win prizes

The immovable deadline is an amazing motivator for me. I recently finished
some code at 12:59:28. The deadline was at 1:00pm. At 32 seconds on the clock,
my code finally stopped returning errors.

Technical hacks are not ignored by everyone. They are, however, often poorly
presented. I got tired of that problem, so I am working on making it easier to
get better exposure during hackathon presentations even if the presenter is
not amazing at pitching. I helped many presenters improve their pitches in
only a few minutes, but it's a difficult skill.

Sponsors don't ignore cool technical hacks. For them, such events are
partially a recruitment opportunity. They often continue to work with
interesting people after the event is over even when they are not winners.

Although I won several hackathons, more importantly I got started working on
my products at such events. They were a catalyst for me to stop dreaming and
start building.

~~~
r0naa
> They are, however, often poorly presented. I got tired of that problem, so I
> am working on making it easier to get better exposure during hackathon
> presentations even if the presenter is not amazing at pitching.

I think that hackathons should revamp this process. If the goal is truly to
build something amazing then judging people on 2 minutes pitch does not make
sense. Maybe let a couple days to a team of judge to go through the
project/code etc...? Just a random thought.

> They often continue to work with interesting people after the event is over
> even when they are not winners.

I second that, I got several interviews that way.

------
sudeepj
There is nothing inherently wrong with hackathons. Software development is one
of few disciplines in which one can cook-up something valuable quickly in few
hours. Imagine medical students trying out this in their discipline :)

However, there is somehow perception that creating via hacking == great
engineering. Hacking is a part of engineering. Engineering requires
discipline, attention to detail, due diligence and long term view. Think about
all the amazing bridges, or design of fighter aircrafts. Sure there might be
moments where something was solved with clever hacks in these endeavours, but
its the rigor of engineering that makes the product final shape.

There is also non-technical aspect. Great hacker may not be == great team
person. All the amazing things around us were created by "teams".

~~~
14113
I think a great comparison would be between the British tv show "Scrapheap
Challenge", and "real world" engineering.

In the show, teams have to compete, over a period of 3 days, to build specific
vehicles (e.g. amphibious cars, remote control tanks, light aircraft) out of
what they can find in a (well stocked) scrapheap. The vehicles are invariably
unsafe, hastily put together, and look you think they'd look after being made
out of scrap. Generally however, each vehicle actually performs the task its
made for.

If you took any one of the competitors on scrapheap challenge, and dropped
them into (say) Lockheed-Martin, they'd undoubtably flounder (at least
initially). The skills required to hack together an aeroplane in 3 days, are
entirely different from the set of skills required to design an f22.

------
iwtbf
Last summer when I was an intern I totally bought the hackathon culture. Then
I went to one and was absolutely appalled at what goes on inside hackathons.
Big talks about the next cool app, and raising money from VC coz I went to Y
school and know Z. One of the apps that won was a chat app for hackers in
2014. There were some good people too, but they were hard to find and very
few. Since then I have started moving away from the so-called hacker culture
and just ignore hackathons. Fundamentally the whole concept of hackathon just
sounds bad to me now. You code and don't sleep or sleep in some random place
at random time. I would take good sleep any day over learning some fancy new
technology. I would prefer hackathons to be more where a set of people show
something interesting they have built and then people can discuss
merits/demerits and start contributing to them. Sprints of open source
projects comes to mind. The likes scikit-learn under python for example.

------
angersock
Do what we did: host a "technical" hackathon. Make it clear that it is just a
couple of days to dick around with new technology, try your hand at some artsy
stuff, or just do something goofy. Make prizes optional (or just goofy), and
give everyone a chance to present their work.

Last hackathon I attended at a university (last month, I think) was pretty
lame, except for like one sound-transmission hack. I think that students are
being encouraged more to focus on businesses or theory and less on the playful
stuff.

Possibly because the "playful" stuff will get you expelled, arrested, or both
these days. :\

~~~
adrusi
Oh, I was at that hackathon. The hack that transfered data between phones
using sound was cool for sure, but there were some other cool ones.

The first place won because they created a custom piece of hardware, but
really it was just a couple of parts bought at radioshack and a simple arduino
controller. Hardware wins big at hackathons.

The second place was a typical hackathon CRUD app.

The third place was a Minecraft bukkit plugin that allowed gambling bitcoin in
a minigame. It was at least a novel idea, and it did directly interact with
the blockchain (as opposed to using some kind of SaaS API), so there's some
technical merit as well.

I think there was one other interesting one in the top ten, and a couple
others that weren't selected for prizes.

Part of the problem is that when you make a more interesting hack, it's harder
to judge whether or not you'll be able to finish it within 24-36 hours. So you
end up with too ambitious a project that you fail to complete, or with too
simple a project, that while novel, fails to impress.

Hackathon judges need to start favoring half-baked interesting hacks over
polished "Uber for X" apps if we want to see more variety.

------
sb8244
How many high school "CEOs" are there in the HH community? I think that tells
a lot about the type of people that are attracted to HH.

However, I don't think a gross generalization of people who go to hackathons
(possibly competitively) is very accurate. A lot of people in the hackathon
community are making actually cool things beyond just sticking APIs together,
and there are many who can not program at all.

WRT selection for a hackathon. When thousands more apply than spots are
available for, there is going to be competition. A lot of the hackathons
realized they were not being inclusive enough and began initiatives to change
that. That type of responsibility is exactly what they should have done.

------
michaelbuckbee
Hackathons, Startup Weekends, etc. aren't really intended to birth the "next
great startup". They are primarily a way for you (and me) and fellow people
who are better at coding than chit-chat networking to meet some interesting
new people, make some friends and if startups are really your thing to maybe
meet a cofounder or a business person.

I get it, it's extremely frustrating that hackathons, like TechCrunch and the
rest of the startup press focus inordinate amounts of attention on
lightweight, consumer focused startups that are probably going to go under in
a couple months if they ever actually get off the ground. But that is the
reality that we live in because that which is easily understood (obviously)
gets more attention from more people than other topics which may have more
value, but require significant industry knowledge to even understand, much
less competitively evaluate.

We fall into this same trap though, as a CS student you probably understand on
a much more detailed level what a profound breakthrough it would be to have
some sort of technology that would double the speed of database queries, but
it's much less likely that you'd really deeply get the impact of a cool "hack"
for some chemical process for doubling the rate of some reaction.

So, in summary:

1\. Don't despair.

2\. Go to hackathons to make stuff and meet people and don't worry about
winning them.

3\. Found your own company and do your own thing.

~~~
danieldk
_3\. Found your own company and do your own thing._

I realize that this is news. _ycombinator.com_ , but it's really sad that
everything needs to end in entrepreneurism, startups, and money.

In hacker culture, _the hack_ used to be the end, not money or power.

The Theo Deraadts and Werner Kochs are the real hackers of this world. They
could have worked for anyone from Google to Facebook and have big paychecks.
Instead, they accepted having more modest means to do what they love: hacking
on code and being in a position where one can uphold their ethics (and the
hacker ethic).

~~~
arfliw
hacking and money are not mutually exclusive. just like music doesn't
automatically suck once it's mainstream.

Case in point:

 _The word “hacker” has an unfairly negative connotation from being portrayed
in the media as people who break into computers. In reality, hacking just
means building something quickly or testing the boundaries of what can be
done. Like most things, it can be used for good or bad, but the vast majority
of hackers I’ve met tend to be idealistic people who want to have a positive
impact on the world._

 _The Hacker Way is an approach to building that involves continuous
improvement and iteration. Hackers believe that something can always be
better, and that nothing is ever complete. They just have to go fix it — often
in the face of people who say it’s impossible or are content with the status
quo._

 _Hackers try to build the best services over the long term by quickly
releasing and learning from smaller iterations rather than trying to get
everything right all at once. To support this, we have built a testing
framework that at any given time can try out thousands of versions of
Facebook. We have the words “Done is better than perfect” painted on our walls
to remind ourselves to always keep shipping._

 _Hacking is also an inherently hands-on and active discipline. Instead of
debating for days whether a new idea is possible or what the best way to build
something is, hackers would rather just prototype something and see what
works. There’s a hacker mantra that you’ll hear a lot around Facebook offices:
“Code wins arguments.”_

 _Hacker culture is also extremely open and meritocratic. Hackers believe that
the best idea and implementation should always win — not the person who is
best at lobbying for an idea or the person who manages the most people._

 _To encourage this approach, every few months we have a hackathon, where
everyone builds prototypes for new ideas they have. At the end, the whole team
gets together and looks at everything that has been built. Many of our most
successful products came out of hackathons, including Timeline, chat, video,
our mobile development framework and some of our most important infrastructure
like the HipHop compiler._

-Mark Zuckerberg in his letter to investors at the FB IPO.

------
smtddr
Your rant is perfectly founded. There is absolutely an issue in the current
tech-scene of people with super-sized egos and the ability to justify nearly
anything if it means their start-up idea will succeed. Most of these attitudes
change with age, but some won't simply because they'll never encounter any
real consequences or talk with people outside their social-circle. You're
running into a high-concentration because, I assume, you have a lot of young
inexperienced people at your hackathons. Already tech-scene in general has
this issue; it's higher with the young who tend to be inexperienced; then
you're at a hackathon where it has a high chance of attracting the extra-
intense of those types of people. It's even extra x 2 if the person comes from
a well-off family. So their parents are wealthy, probably the parents friends
and their kids are all well-off, go to a fancy school walk right off campus
into fluffy VC-funded paradise without knowing anything of the world outside
of wealth & tech. Anyone would have a difficult time developing empathy in
that situation.

You may or may not be religious, but this quote comes to mind: _" For what is
a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Or
what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?"_ \--Matthew 16:26

Best thing, imho, is don't let them change you. Stay compassionate and have
empathy towards others; especially those outside of tech. Don't let your ego
inflate to the point where you start saying things like _" We create value!
Everyone else should be praising us!"_ When you start to feel troubled by it
walk away from tech. Have a walk in a nice park or something. Next time a
homeless person asks for money, give a larger amount and perhaps try to strike
up a conversation to hear their story. If you can, even volunteer at a
homeless shelter. Definitely avoid trying to apply computer-world-boolean-
logic to humans. Listen to people and appreciate emotions; don't consider
emotions an inefficient distraction. Emotions is what makes us human and
keeping in touch with them helps you understand others. Embrace your emotions
and allow your heart to move you instead of your programmer-mind from time to
time. Try a dancing lesson or 2. Maybe even read some romance novels. Remember
the cashier that sold you that cup of coffee this morning is just as important
as you are. Basically, don't lose your humanity in this goldrush.

There's more to life than social apps & VC-funding.

~~~
richardjordan
How terrible is wisdom when it brings no profit to the wise -- Sophocles :-)

------
lettergram
I know myself and a large group of students constantly avoid going to
hackathons because it teaches you to:

(1) Focus on short sighted goals

(2) reinforce "hacks" as opposed to well engineered code

(3) Not build long lasting projects

I spend 6 - 12 hours a day coding everyday (weekends and all), and I produce
(in my opinion) really cool stuff. Producing a quality, bug free, code
requires a program to be dynamic, and usually takes weeks to months to code
properly. My goal is always to implement a new function every day, one 25 line
max function. I actually learn more being consistent, as opposed to being
exhausted and hardcoding an address.

I actually (sorry) hate working with the hackathon types, some can code really
well in a pinch, but in the end they usually are not reliable and bugs usually
go uncorrected. There was a post yesterday about the final 10% of a program
being left incomplete, and that's where I feel hackathon types have a
tendencies to leave.

~~~
ethanbond
I agree with this, but I think those are important skills to have; they just
shouldn't be your only skills or even your default skills.

------
realrocker
Hackathon is a side-effect of a wider change in modern software development.
We seem to have successfully commoditized a portion of it. This portion called
"apps" is mostly a cosmetic rearrangement of underlying components. Flush
funding and the apparent status such work provides is hard to ignore. I mean
how am I supposed to say no to a 10k prize money for 10-12 hours of work?

Whenever a product is commoditised, the brushes hide and the hammers come out.
Imagine how the elite calligraphers of the 15th century felt when their
beautiful noble art form was replaced by a block of wood. And the disgust they
would have felt of seeing books in the hands of common folk instead of the
Kings. IMO I think it's alright since we are not sure yet whether the hammers
cannot change the world. They yet might.

------
prezjordan
I'm also very skeptical of how fast hackathons are growing, but let's look at
the results here. We have kids who would otherwise rely on their college
courses to teach them CS and prepare them for the job market. Instead we have
a few showmen (include the one you quoted) who get the masses psyched up about
building things. I think that's pretty cool!

Don't go to a hackathon to "win." In fact, I wish prizes were removed
completely. Instead, go to hang out with like-minded folks, learn something
new, and teach a newcomer. You'll get the most out of THAT as opposed to
slamming a few APIs together and claiming whatever quadcopter Twilio is giving
out this year.

------
ChuckMcM
This isn't a "new" thing, there are those who create with technology, and
there are those who exploit technology for gain. The original dot.com "boom"
was the influx of people who really didn't care at all about what having the
"Internet" meant if they all they needed was a good pitch and could get
millions by convincing people that revenue wasn't a big deal, it was all about
foot print. Those folks really offended the folks who were serious about the
technology (or the art if you will) and they nearly all went broke or left in
2000/2001\. The other crowd are the folks who use technology to take advantage
of others, they rank from actual criminals stealing money out of banks, to the
nominally legal adtech startups with "negative" patterns. This group doesn't
care about technology either, except as a vector to get to "someone's" money
and transfer it to make it "their" money.

This spectrum though is everywhere, from professional sports, to programming,
to finance, to dog training.

But from your example, _" ... this ... from a guy who has never engineered
anything."_ pretty much defines the term 'poser' people who try to talk the
talk and act like people who they see getting a lot of "coolness" or
"celebrity" without actually understanding where that coolness or celebrity
comes from. There are a lot of them, they are mostly harmless, identify them
and move on. If they are trying to recruit you to come work for them, work
somewhere else, you will be happy you did :-)

------
shithhsaid
For those unfamiliar with the Hackathon Hackers culture, please see some
select samples:

[https://twitter.com/shit_hh_said](https://twitter.com/shit_hh_said)

~~~
lucasmullens
Anything can look bad when you pick and choose.
[https://twitter.com/shit_hn_says](https://twitter.com/shit_hn_says)

~~~
gaius
I wish they were linked back, I'm sure one of them was me...

------
richardjordan
You aren't wrong. I've been going to hackathons for many years and there's
been a steady increase in folks who are going "to win" rather than folks going
for the fun, the energy, the comradeship. Meeting other smart folks,
sharpening your skills and having fun were always the big drivers for me and
everyone I used to meet at them. I think GroupMe was a turning point. Big win,
lots of $$, and that attracted a different kind of person unfortunately.

~~~
srcreigh
Did you hear about the student hackathon in Waterloo Ontario, Hack the North?
The organizers purposely did not announce anything relating to prizes for the
whole event until the end. The funny thing was that nobody even asked! For the
finals they ended up giving the top 10 teams equal prizes; there was no 1st
2nd 3rd etc.

An organizer from Penn did a nice writeup of Hack the North here:
[https://medium.com/@bclaypoole/what-made-hack-the-north-
grea...](https://medium.com/@bclaypoole/what-made-hack-the-north-
great-4211e0a9344b).

------
adambenz
My company started running hardware hackathons this year to connect with our
community, etc., and we are doing 10 events in total across the US. After our
first event we realized that conditioning hackers/makers/learners to build
stuff that is "commercially worthy" or "prize worthy" takes away from what we
set on doing: create a fun and safe place to learn, explore, to push the
envelope, to create for the sake of creation. I totally agree with you that we
should all take a step back from all the commercial/ego/noise culture and
connect as teachers, learners and a community first. We noticed that the more
we emphasize the real culture of our events, the better the connection, the
magic and creation. Plus the real cool kids don't have to act cool...they just
are. Long term, you can't fake authenticity.

------
empressplay
I gave up on "hackathons" when I went to three in a row whose winners never
wrote a single line of code during the actual event, and instead spent the
whole weekend working on their pitches.

I protested (because I tend to do that) but my concerns fell on deaf ears. The
organisers didn't see anything wrong with spending the weekend building a
pitch rather than a product. It was all about whatever it took to impress the
judges -- and the judges were all entrepreneurs with their own pump-and-dump
style startups, so they weren't really all that tech-savvy and weren't
impressed by technical innovation.

Don't get me wrong, there's certainly a place for pitch-a-thon events but
that's what they are -- create a 'kick-ass concept' \-- not about technical
hacking, and don't make that mistake.

~~~
mkal_tsr
I remember when hackathons were all about "here's some buggy code I wrote that
does random/obscure feature/task X because _look at how cool that is_ " and
not "look at this pitch/product I'm trying to make to earn prize Y" Shame
those days seem to be fading into obscurity.

------
krrishd
I left the HH groups for the reasons you mentioned. I personally think it
distorts your view on what tech can really do, since the signal/noise ratio
has been so low lately. I don't think it's _as bad_ as the group makes it
feel, but you're well founded in your opinion.

------
mattxxx
Hackathons are a hustle. Honestly, the smug, young dev is probably the most
likely one to be exploited.

------
10098
This is simply this generation's "1337 haxx0rz".

Back when I was in school, Matrix was popular, and the term "hacker" had very
different connotations.

People would call themselves "cyberpunk", "1337", they would install linux
because it was a status symbol in that culture and it was trendy to hate on
microsoft. Overall, the "haxx0rz"/skiddies/whatever were just as insufferable
as today's "genius 10x entrepreneur 23-year-old CTO"-s.

In the end, it was a net benefit. The more talented of them actually became
software engineers, IT or security specialists. Maybe a similar thing will
happen with the current generation.

~~~
code_reuse
well you've gotta admit at least that Microsoft did in fact suck :)

For me.. cyberpunk was cool because of Neil Stephenson, William Gibson, and
uhh ShadowRun.. Somehow this meshed with the rave scene and I guess also
'industrial' music which was slowly becoming cool.. but for a while.. it
wasn't quite there yet and being a hacker had negative coolness connotations
kind of like being into MTG or D&D.

I never thought about the release of the movie "the Matrix" as being the pivot
moment after which the consensus view of hackerdom coolness shifted (at least
in highschools across america), but you're probably right.

------
caligastia
Hacker culture is dangerous.

We are living in a technological Cambrian explosion, and it is certainly very
exciting to see the many types of hardware, software, and techniques that have
emerged in a few short years.

The power that can be wielded by tying together a few components is enormous.
Unfortunately the 'Hacker Way' is to glue components together and declare
success if the whole thing 'works'. The glue is normally a scripting language
of some sort, and the pieces can be enormously powerful, such as an EC2
cluster or an IP messaging framework.

There was a study a while back called 'The Cloud Begins With Coal'. While some
may dispute the specifics, the main point is this- computation requires
energy. When you integrate components without regard for how much energy is
required to exercise them, you can end up with an enormous and inefficient or
dangerous system.

Consider Facebook, a case study of the dangerous effects of a hacker system
coupled with large amounts of money. They have built an enormous computational
infrastructure to automate the task of sharing pictures over a network.
Thousands of engineers and large amounts of electricity are being consumed to
execute a process that has no clear social benefit, and for which few of the
'customers' would be willing to pay, other than the surveillance agencies.

Why is that? I propose it is due to non-systems thinking, nobody sat down at
the beginning to engineer the end-to-end process (much less the business
model). A properly engineered system would require a central piece of telecom
equipment, say a typical Ericsson switch, and a git-like protocol that stored
content on the client side. Boom, no data center required.

Somebody a few days ago demonstrated the ability to delete arbitrary content
from the Facebook data center using a Raspberry Pi. Hacker vs. Hacker.

Another example of hacker culture is the NSA - nobody there thought of the
world as a complete system, they just hacked together a whole slew of tools to
accomplish one part of their mission (SIGINT) without regard for their
ultimate customer, the American people.

We need to declare hacker culture a clear and present danger to society.

~~~
TeMPOraL
I have mixed feelings about this.

On the one hand, I agree with the energy-efficiency issues, and the amounts of
waste in current products annoy me. It got so bad that people honestly think
routing data around the world to do something that should be done via a local
network is a good idea. I wouldn't pick on Facebook that much though, it has a
clear social benefit - they hit a sweet spot in terms of interpersonal
communication, as witnessed by the adoption it has. I know I derive tons of
value from Facebook and can hardly imagine switching to something else now.

On the other hand, the thing I disagree with is calling it the hacker culture.
Let's be clear about what group of people you're complaining about - it's not
the culture of skilled, playful people - it's the hipster/startup variant of
"hacker culture", taking a bunch of APIs for cat pictures, gluing them
together with the most trendy JS framework that happens to be totally
overcomplicated for the task at hand, and calling yourself the master of the
world. The guy with Raspberry Pi is probably the only actual hacker in your
entire comment.

Also remember that programming went mainstream some time ago, and most of the
programmers that are employed are _not_ hackers.

Hacker culture is fine. Hipster culture is dangerous.

------
srcreigh
Discussion on HH:
[https://www.facebook.com/groups/hackathonhackers/permalink/1...](https://www.facebook.com/groups/hackathonhackers/permalink/1013619188693566/)

------
crdb
That's because the world is vast and there are many companies and engineers in
it.

I see two types of engineers: the build-it-quick lot and the build-it-right
lot.

The first is ideal for companies where getting an idea to market as fast and
cheap as possible is ideal. They use abstraction tools which are not robust
but allow fast and flexible prototyping and a "MVP" to come out in a month.
The end goal is to get enough traction for an acquisition, the acquirer can
worry about rebuilding things properly.

The second lot are greybeards, with or without grey or beards. They will tell
managers annoying things like "I can't commit to this deadline because I don't
know, right now, the order of magnitude of time this will take". They work for
larger companies or more ambitious projects where correctness and robustness
is valued, like in banks or designing embedded systems or machine vision
companies. They also tend to cost more because their skillset is bid up by
large companies with deep pockets.

Both sides have a point.

It's probably more important to push the MVP out today before you run out of
money than to have a truly scalable, Boyce-Codd NF compliant database
underlying it in just a few more months, if you're building a simple company
in a busy space, and worrying about customer data protection when you have no
customers is understandably not at the top of the priority list for your
investors.

On the other hand, it's probably a bad idea to build your hospital life
support system in RoR, or your multinational financial reporting
infrastructure in 2 weeks of "hacking".

~~~
golergka
> I see two types of engineers: the build-it-quick lot and the build-it-right
> lot.

There are also those of us who try to be both, depending on the current
business priorities.

~~~
crdb
I used to think that, but experience has taught me otherwise. The buyer of
services is what makes or breaks the deliverable, it is they who have the
power. Sure, a competent engineer is a pre-requisite but there are situations
where you simply cannot win.

------
ww520
The hackathons I've been to are pretty weak technically. Most focused on ideas
and investment opportunity, very far from real hacking by building stuff.

------
ForHackernews
Honestly, I think part of this is because the word(s) "hack"/"hacker" have
gotten really played out. At one time, 'hacker' had pretty specific[0], if not
always easily-defined meanings. You might not be able to articulate what makes
a great hack (quick: what do phone phreaking and putting a cop car on the MIT
dome have in common?), but you knew it when you saw it.

Nowadays, "hacker" has cultural cachet so we get lifehackers, growth-hackers,
hackathons, etc.

In my curmudgeonly opinion, none of these are really hackers or about hacking.
Real hackers (I do not consider myself one) need to do a better job of
policing the use of the word "hacker", but they tend to be terrible at doing
so, because they remember what it's like to be socially excluded and don't
want to be seen as socially exclusionary.

[0]
[http://catb.org/jargon/html/index.html](http://catb.org/jargon/html/index.html)

~~~
r0naa
This is funny because whenever I get into an argument on HH about the "true"
meaning of the term hacker I end-up posting this link to catb. It usually ends
up with me being called a nostalgic conservative.

tl;dr: Apparently I am 19 years old nostalgic.

~~~
ForHackernews
Yeah, it's always going to spark arguments. There are many of people who are
invested in calling themselves hackers, and some of them want to be cool but
don't want to be associated with those scary criminals, so they'll try and
tell you certain hackers are "actually not hackers, but _crackers_ " and the
whole thing gets derailed into a Hackier-Than-Thou competition.

From my perspective, there's a certain _je ne sais quoi_ of real hacking, and
it has nothing to do with churning out an MVP in a weekend. In fact, sometimes
the greatest hacks are the _least_ practical.[0]

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_over_Avian_Carriers#Real-
li...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_over_Avian_Carriers#Real-
life_implementation)

------
happertiger
Look, the Valley is full of dreamers and some are lucky at it, but most
success happens out in the real world and needs doers to make it go. Dreamers
are usually more articulate and well spoken than doers, since that's all they
do. Above all, the Valley rewards dreamers who actually do.

Ignore the bullshit — there will be plenty. Focus on what you want to do.

------
pi-squared
I see hackathons as a very fun activity - it needs not be serious. Imagine it
like a friendly basketball game with few of your friends and a chance to meet
new players. Now, there will be some people who will think that they are
worthy of playing major league, because they were best in college or
something, but as said in many other comments - they will get a reality check
sooner or later.

Hackathons come in many flavors - some are trying to mock a startup
environment, some are sponsored by big corps who look for PR, some are trying
to find vulns in software. But at their core, they should be looked at a
chance to just gather with like-minded people, exchange ideas, give a stab at
an interesting challenge, win a trophy and move on. And a company that hires a
person based on flashy trophies from basketball courts down the street,
probably needs to rethink some of its values.

------
code_reuse
I'm 33. I graduated from highschool in 2000. Back then we had something called
'LAN parties' which were off-campus adhoc gatherings of nerds who would haul
their desktop PCs around and setup a temporary LAN using physical ethernet
cables (ever heard of coax?). The ones I went to took place in the food court
of the local mall on the first Friday of every month and were advertised in
the back of a magazine called "2600 the hacker quarterly".

When I first started going to these tons of people there were BBS sysops,
others were HAM radio enthusiasts who were learning about microwave packet
radio, others were hardware hackers, telephony phreaks, ascii artists, and a
few were pro infosec geeks.

Nobody was there because of the idea of "launching a startup" everybody was
there because they wanted to _learn_ about the Internet and the emerging
technologies associated with it. When I first started going to these meetings
in my teens most normal people hadn't even heard of the Internet (aside from
AOL), so there definitely wasn't the idea that you're going to get rich just
by hacking.

We had a blast just helping each other learn things like BSD sockets,
networking, or hardware hacking for the sheer joy of it. Hacking was a FUN
HOBBY but not one that would get you chicks or gobs of cash.. it was kind of
like ANSI ART, demo scene, or HAM Radio which a lot of us were also interested
in. There was absolutely zero pressure to achieve anything other than to have
fun by learning.

There was a certain hacker ethos that existed back then which seems to be gone
now as geek becomes sheek. You can still get a feel for what it used to be by
reading some of the literature.

Here's a couple of books off my shelf from that time period which I highly
recommend:

[http://www.amazon.com/Masters-Deception-Gang-Ruled-
Cyberspac...](http://www.amazon.com/Masters-Deception-Gang-Ruled-
Cyberspace/dp/0060926945)

[http://www.amazon.com/Cryptonomicon-Neal-
Stephenson/dp/00605...](http://www.amazon.com/Cryptonomicon-Neal-
Stephenson/dp/0060512806)

------
aravan
I have been to few hacks to India, I found similar drama held by judges here.
Well, I don't go for winning a price, nowadays, hackathan is mainly conducted
for hireathon, you need to work on specific domain that company is experienced
in.

You wrote next best google algorithm for page ranking, accurate search
results, you will be probably get ignored. You will be asked what is the
business value? Why people should buy from you. The funny thing is, hackathan
is just a coding stuffs, not a VC pitch club.

After few hackathans, I decided to not to compete on the crowd on a similar
idea, then I pick my own idea or some algorithm to try, get to the extend of
it make it work.

------
slashedzero
The "Hackathon" part in "Hackathon Hackers" is totally relative. Your
"hackathon" depends completely on the people judging it. Being judged by a
bunch of suits with no connection to the technical world? Prepare for Uber for
Facebook Cats. However, if you go to a hackathon where the judges are
intimately familiar with the technology at hand, you'll get more praise for
technical hacks.

In mainstream culture, the latter gets far less press, but the rewards of
those hackathons in terms of networking are priceless.

~~~
adrusi
Unfortunately, the judges for the major collegiate hackathons are usually
almost all from technical backgrounds, but they're representatives from
companies looking to hire, and they're told to judge by factoring in
entrepreneurial value.

~~~
r0naa
Spot on.

Jeff Dean was a judge at TreeHacks but _some_ of the top prizes where shitty
hacks (App to wake up or something). Most of the prized hacks were really
impressive though and involved a lot of engineering. I was really excited
about that.

Same feeling at Hack the North (Waterloo) some shitty Airbnb for X but overall
some really impressive and cool hacks. Speaks volume for the engineering
culture at both Universities.

------
ianstallings
I think what you are objecting to is _the scene_ and the inherent feeling of
fakery. I wouldn't be bothered by it too much, I've been in the industry for
quite a while and I've seen people come and go. If you truly love this job
you'll be here in a decade or more, but only if you love it. The fly-by-nights
will have flown.

And just think, they make you look all that much better. For all the hype of
this industry we really are a conservative pragmatic bunch. We don't fall for
the hype too often.

------
marssaxman
I'm curious about this hackathon culture, because it has clearly become a real
thing, but I have only a hazy concept of what's involved, why people would
want to do it, or how people are communicating about them. I've never heard an
announcement of one, an invitation to participate in one, or seen any
advertising about them. How do people find out about hackathons? To whom are
they advertised? Who chooses to participate in them? And what is the point of
it all?

------
aburan28
Its these damn nodejs script kiddies

------
swatow
I wonder if you would enjoy other kinds of community tech events more, ones
that are closer to the technical side rather than the business side. Things
like robot cup come to mind. If you are interested in social/environmental
projects and meeting other similar people, you should check out the solar
decathlon. I never did it but it looked fun.

------
shin_lao
A hackathon is a good tool to brainstorm and have some Proof of Concept, but
it is a bit silly to believe that it is a good way to build a lasting product
and I must say a bit sad to think that what matters is making money.

Building web applications is a very small subset of software engineering with
an extremely small subset of what life is about.

Just attend other meetups.

------
lazyseq
It is very mature that you want perspectives and I appreciate people who are
not afraid to say what they mean. You touch on a lot of hot topics here
including agism, hackathons, "hacker" culture, brogrammers, and so on. I'll
try to write a few replies to address your concerns.

I am one of these "older engineers" as you describe. Mostly I am well-
respected by anyone who works with me because I tend to intimidate, but also
be very helpful and mentor people. I do feel a lot of disrespect from younger
people I meet in the industry. I actually look extremely young for my age, but
I can hardly pass as a 22-year old.

Anyway, I'll start by discussing your generation stereotypically. I've been
hiring people from universities for a few decades now and I am increasingly
disappointed as time passes. Maybe I am just becoming a grouchy aging
developer, my patience is wearing thin, or perhaps what I see is just reality.
When I hire someone, especially out of school, I never expect them to know
much about XYZ technology we use, ABC framework, or anything else I am using
at the time. Simply, I look for smart people who I think my team can get along
with in the workplace, are at least a tiny bit motivated to work, and are
honest in every sense of the word. I learned the hard way it's better to hire
someone who is a good, honest, hard worker than someone full of great ideas
that can't execute or pisses everyone off each day. Unfortunately, I find
myself disgusted by the type people who show up for interview and that I have
to deal with from other companies. I do not ask for much.

Perhaps in the words of William S Burroughs, a few "words of advice for young
people" are needed:

Do not turn on your cell phone during an interview, show up on time, do some
basic research about us before you arrive, understand at least bullet item we
wrote on the job description, etc. I'm not your dad and most definitely not
your bro. Do not show up to the interview in your free give-away Angular.js
t-shirt you got. That technology or framework you are named dropping and then
trying to use to feign knowledge about? Well, you aren't fooling me, I
probably used it or read about it, tried it, and realized that my instinct
that it was garbage was true. I use more new technologies than you do because
I am doing actual work as I have done for decades. Just because I am older
than you doesn't mean I don't understand Ruby. Just because I don't seem
impressed by your node.js github project doesn't mean I don't get it. More
likely I am not impressed because your code is terrible and I am shocked that
it took you so many weeks and commits to do what you would be expected to
finish in 1 day at our office.

Remember that class where you decided the professor was as a-hole and that it
was just too early in the morning to go to anyway? Was it called data
structures 101? Well, it's going to bite you one day when you interview with
me and you can't tell me when you would use a hash table and when you would
use a list. Remember when you interviewed with me and you didn't get the job
which you thought it was because I just didn't like JavaScript? Well, you are
wrong, you did not get the job because you could not explain basics in
JavaScript, your favorite language. Go ahead and criticize us for using Foo
technology, because even though it's rock solid stable, works great in real-
world production, and is making us millions, we were waiting for you to tell
us to rip it out and replace it with Bar, which your buddy just put up on
Github yesterday. But that's OK, because we're a lame company, and everything
is our fault. We just need you to turn the ship around, so by all means, act
like an idiot because there is no way we can live without your genius.

Do you want to impress me? Tell me what you know. Explain to me what will make
you happy and motivated you. When you do not know something, admit it instead
of trying to bs me. I hear enough bs from sales guys, marketing people, and
VPs of the department of nothing to recognize bs before it leaves your lips.
When you do not know something, do not give up. Tell me how you would do it
differently or how you would go about finding the solution. If I give you
hints or part of the solution, use it or even ask me for another hint. I am
trying to help you because I am tired of interviewing people just like you. I
want to hire you so I can get back to coding. I have already seen ten of you
today, and I am currently considering offering a 5 million bounty for the next
person who can sit in that chair and have even 20% of what we need to do the
job.

You can be relaxed, just not too much. Most developers who have been at it for
awhile really need to stay relaxed and do not take everything too seriously.
You can have fun with us and talk to us. That does not give you a license to
fool around, act unprofessional, or like an idiot. This is a job, and it takes
very little else but hard work like any other job. Things are done by doing,
not talking. People worth impressing are impressed by actions, not words.

/rant

~~~
r00nk
Hey there, one of the young guys here, trying to weasel my way into a job, I
have a few questions for you If you don't mind.

You said this:

 _More likely I am not impressed because your code is terrible and I am
shocked that it took you so many weeks and commits to do what you would be
expected to finish in 1 day at our office._

I have a github account, and I use it to host a few of my projects. Right now
I'm working on writing a operating system. It's been somewhat successful so
far, but as operating systems are a deep and complex field, and I'm definitely
still learning, there's a lot of embarrassing mistakes and bad code throughout
the git log. For example, I just recently learned how to properly write
makefiles , and a day on my project was just on writing a somewhat simple in
hindsight makefile (because I was reading the man page at the same time).
Should I just not host said projects on my github?

Also, when you look at a github profile, what do you look at? Asking because I
can probably get more followers if I make more node.js whatever, but I really
like my C and I tend to go for more challenging projects then popular ones. Is
that a bad idea?

~~~
lazyseq
Let me also add some more specifics for your case:

1\. Program whatever you want. Don't go for popularity. If you don't do what
you want, then you won't finish.

2\. Corollary to the first item, finish what you start.

3\. Anyone who judges on stars as an idiot. I will use the sweeping brush. In
the same way it's hard to make a hugely successful startup, being good and
being popular are two different things. Without naming languages, frameworks,
etc., I personally find a lot of the most popular stuff to be among the worst
tech wise.

4\. Consider making some of your projects private if you are really that
worried. Github is for open source, public collaboration. Although it provides
private accounts for pay, I am not sure it's always the best deal financially.
If something needs to be private, then hosting on a public service may not be
the best idea anyway. Either self host, or at least comparison shop. More
generally, don't put things out there you don't want people to see. I'd even
add people need to stop putting things out there that are not worth seeing as
it just makes it harder and harder to find what is a toy vs. a real project.

5\. For Github profiles, mainly I look at what I mentioned in my other post.
Code quality over quantity, good behavior, and claims match reality.

Finally, I will add that you should not take on things that are too ambitious.
While it is good to challenge yourself and you learn, it is much better to
take on projects you can finish. This is a hard thing because it requires
motivation and the related skill of picking something that is challenging
enough to keep it interesting, but still feasible. I say this as the author of
multiple past game engines that I never fully finished and released for
instance.

I often tell colleagues the following rules about projects in general (again,
challenge yourself within reason and for mental exercise, but consider below
general statements about programmers):

1\. Don't make a programming language. You probably aren't the guy to do it.
There is most likely exactly two people in this world in every generation
qualified to do this well and you probably are not one of them. Unfortunately,
many people have made programming languages who should not have without naming
names.

2\. Don't make an operating system. This is hard. Really hard. Same points
about #1 hold, only you probably also need an army of people helping you to do
this right. Obviously this may not apply for some small scales and it's find
to experiment, but your OS isn't going to change the world. No one will care
about it and realize that the software usually makes the OS, rarely the other
way around. There are a lot of abandoned/nearly abandoned OS code-bases that
are much better than anything we use, but they didn't have developers, weren't
cost effective, etc. Console wars have shown the same thing in the past.

3\. Don't make a database. You probably will do it wrong. Your database will
be fast and fix all kinds of problems the past ones had, but when you start
adding in the real features, things change. Soon you will realize that your
database now has similar problems to the ones you wanted to fix because as you
had to do things like transactions, clustering, backup, logging, and so-on,
your optimizations could not work anymore. A lot smarter people than you
worked on these problems a lot longer. If they could have magically fixed many
of these problems, they would have. While it's true legacy code and corporate
politics get in the way here often, that doesn't mean that the same won't
happen to you. If you do need to make a #1, 2, or 3, please sit on it for a
few years first and talk to people smarter than you before you start. And
don't neglect security either.

4\. Pay attention to the past. Someone probably made what you made many times
before. The first or second time was probably the best, but everything since
has just been worse with the benefit of faster hardware. Instead, just simply
dig up the past if you must and do what they did in a modern context, giving
acknowledgement and credit where it is due. Learn from the mistakes of others
as well.

5\. Whatever you built is insecure. Ask a security expert or 50 to review it,
and then get some coffee because you probably have twice as much work to do to
fix it as when you first built it. Better you ask these people before you even
write a line of code or at least very early in the process, or hell will
descend about you quickly.

~~~
eatonphil
There is so much wrong with this post. I'll follow your ordering.

1\. Program WHATEVER you want. We can't make assumptions about what drives
you. If popularity is your biggest drive, then use it. Don't ignore what
drives you because you think one way is more honorable than the next. Do what
you need to do. No one cares why you do something if you do a good job.

2\. Fine.

3\. Anyone who judges on stars is normal. They may also be an idiot. But in
most cases, stars WILL impress your prospective employers. This may not be a
GOOD thing, but it is true. It is just how humans think. Go with the tide not
against it, but certainly, the popularity ratings are not all important. Use
them to help you advertise yourself but don't rely on them solely.

4\. If you are a beginner, there is NOTHING you have out there a prospective
employer would not benefit from seeing. Most people I see starting out have so
little. It doesn't matter if the project is unfinished. Most projects ARE
unfinished. If you just came out of school your prospective employer should be
understanding of your priorities.

5\. Fine.

Now onto the next list, but a general note first. WRITE WHATEVER YOU WANT. Our
entire economy is based around survival of the fittest (for the most part).
Create the next best * (language, OS, api, db, etc) or don't, you still
learned a hell of a lot (I hope). Jumping into things with which you are
unfamiliar is AWESOME. You WILL be rewarded.

Anyway, the next list:

1\. As with everything else, if you want to do this, do it. You will learn
about lexing, parsing (because God knows most people can't tell the two
apart), ASTs, the difference between a compiler and an interpreter. At the
very least you will be the more intelligent voice at _Your Generic Job_ when
talking about Python's awkward scoping.

2\. Write WHATEVER you want. Now, truthfully, you probably won't get far. But
if you learn what a kernel is, what a boot sector is, etc, you will be far
ahead of most other programmers out there. Will this be helpful in your
career? Probably not. But WHO cares! You'll learn some good C skills at least.

3\. Write WHATEVER you want! Honestly a simple database is probably the
simplest of the three mentioned topics (language, OS). New databases are
always being written.

Ultimately, the point is always that although you _probably_ won't beat the
existing implementations, you WILL learn a lot about how they work. There is
nothing more helpful (IMHO) when learning a new topic/api/etc than writing it
from scratch. Move on when you understand the concepts. Certainly, don't use
your project in production _probably_ , but it doesn't mean you didn't learn
anything!

4\. Fine.

5\. Fine.

Point is, these lists come off as incredibly narrow-minded. A beginner should
do what interests them. While their projects _probably_ won't take off, these
are the most important things to show to employers down the road. This will
demonstrate your interest in CS, your ability to take on a challenging
project, and for crying out loud it gives you code samples. Email me if you
have questions.

/rant

~~~
carapace
I don't think you correct the parent so much as come at the question from a
different viewpoint and context.

If you are trying to avoid B.S. as a newbie professional programmer then the
parent advice is, in my opinion, very apt (and "narrow-minded" only to a
degree that feels well-focused.)

On the other hand, if you are a beginner and hoping to really learn the art,
as well as the trade, then your comments eatonphil are most apt as well.

For example, knowing what I know now, I would never try to design and
implement my own language (except for fun), but I know what I know now in part
because I've done so in the past. ;-)

------
rl3
To put the modern hackathon ethos into perspective, simply compare it to the
demoscene.

Suddenly, the title of "hacker" that so many pride themselves on starts to
feel a bit generous. Especially in context of simple CRUD apps and API
mashups.

------
lazyseq
Regarding hackathons, I've felt much the same as you. I let many of my team
members go to these events to keep them happy, motivated, and to network. I
have met many people from these events, brought them in for interview, tried
to find people to start a start-up with, and so on.

Full disclosure - I've only gone to hackathons to accompany co-workers to
provide advice and to network, I don't have any desire to actually
participate.

Anyway, my general view on hackathons are they are a waste of time. If you
want to learn something, learn by doing a real task, not a contrived one for a
hackathon. If you are taking a more practical idea into a hackathon, sit on
it, use that time to think it through, and build it on your own time, rather
than in a noisy room. I get that people want to network, that they need
motivated, and that constraints/goals/focus can inspire them, but I really
feel that in software development, that's just people looking for an excuse.
If you want to build something, build it. If you want a constraint, write it
on a piece of paper yourself and follow it. If you lack the creativity to make
something without the help of a hackathon, you are probably a lost cause
anyway.

You can experiment with that new technology yourself. You don't need the group
to tell you what you are doing is right or cool. The group is often wrong or
misguided. History is full of bad group think. The way I see it is that if you
are really a computer scientist, look at your computer and the world around
you for a few minutes. You should easily see thousands of problems that need
to be solved or can be solved better. It doesn't matter if it is polishing an
old tech or a crazy new idea that throws out everything we learned before. I
have more problems to solve than I can handle in a lifetime and I cannot
imagine wasting that time at a hackathon in that kind of ridiculous
environment.

You mentioned that there is definitely a bro/framework/money culture and I
agree. Look at all the "schwag" and advertisements at most bigger hackathons.
People want you to buy things and to use their stuff. Putting time constraints
on people doesn't make them automatically more creative, often it just forces
them into using whatever framework because of the nature of the hackathon so
they can get something complete. This is constraining creativity usually, not
encouraging it. This is not some romatic story about a lab deep in the bowles
of MIT where the next great clean energy will save the universe, it is a
gathering of guys trying to out muscle each other's egos. The bros will
dominate because of this and will always be there in some form.

Check the experience level. Notice that a lot of great programmers don't go to
these events. Why? They are working and don't really care, and nor should
they. If you want to have some fun with people, start asking your colleagues
and friends why they are going to XYZ events, hackathon, whatever. Strangely
enough, most people I have asked can't explain and give reasons like free
pizza, chance to win an ipad, or to hear a presentation about ABC technology.
Is it worth losing a day of work or the weekend for that? Can you not read
things in more depth at home or even just watch the video later? What is the
point?

The point is perhaps to just participate in more group activities and feel
part of something. There are similar reasons why people go to religious
services, join fraternities and clubs, and post on message boards. People like
meeting like-minded people. When a dominant sub-group emerges within a group,
it becomes the group and usually drives out the fringes. I remember older and
smaller versions of hackathons and meetups at people's houses, garages, etc.
in decades past. It was really the same thing where bad actors eventually
dominated, and perhaps for awhile there was a period where it felt fun, then
stopped. Very little has changed, only scale and the way the same personality
types manifest themselves in the context of the time.

Don't get discouraged by these people. They are everywhere, in every sub-
culture. If they want to call themselves stupid terms like "hackers" instead
of software developers, so be it. If companies want to be idiots and put up
job ads calling for "rockstar programmers," just ignore them and take it as
early notice that working there would probably suck. If someone wants to shove
their glued frameworks in your face and claim they are awesome, just point out
exactly what they have done and how simple, or better yet, just do something
better yourself. You be the example, and you be the good guy.

But yes, you are right, I hate these people and I too feel they are unethical
with stupid ideas that advance nothing. I think this shameful bubble of
valuations of companies that don't really produce anything including actual
revenue based on something real (ads don't count, sorry, if advertising would
die and take 98% of the internet with it, so be it) need to die a quick death.

~~~
haskellvilain
I would love to chat, feel free to shoot me a message:
alt.r9-5p83se1@yopmail.com

------
vchynarov
I too am a CS student attending a university that particularly flaunts their
levels of startup incubator availability. Ignore them, do your own thing is
what I found works for me.

------
dropit_sphere
Don't worry; good technical chops will never go out of style.

------
bau5
[http://www.reddit.com/r/lewronggeneration](http://www.reddit.com/r/lewronggeneration)

------
adrusi
I'm a CS freshman at UMD who's been getting into the hackathon scene in the
past months (been to 3, am somewhat involved with the HH facebook groups).
I've been involved with the software community for about 5 years though, and
programmed for 7.

> It bothers me to see how obsessed with success this generation of "hackers"
> seems to be.

Yeah, there's a lot of people who want to get rich by making a startup, and
recently there was a poll that showed that the majority of people in the
Facebook group want to go into management in their mid to late career. We're
in the middle of a tech bubble and I think this is a symptom of it. Over the
past decade or two, working with computers has become "cooler" as a part of
"geek culture". People have seen a lot of people get outrageously rich with
tech startups. And people are realizing that software is a high-paying field
with a lower barrier to entry than most similar occupations. It's attracted a
lot of people who just want money where previously there were people who were
truly passionate. Or maybe it was always like that, I can't know.

> I have met people who were justifying censorship, population control and
> unfair business practices because they could benefit from them someday. I
> was expecting a little more regard to civil liberties and ethics from
> students and so called "hackers".

I haven't noticed that there's more people with this attitude within the
hackathon community than outside it. Maybe a bit of unfair business practices,
but the cases I saw seemed to be the result of not realizing that a practice
was unfair. (Not counting the joke ideas that get thrown around all the time
of course)

> People win by making "cool" apps (Uber for X) whereas technical hacks are
> totally ignored

It's a sad truth that simple CRUD apps are over-rewarded at hackathons.
Interesting technical hacks aren't "totally ignored" though. It's just that
it's harder to judge how long it will take to make something interesting, so
either the result ends up being unfinished, or too unambitious, and it fails
to capture the attention of judges.

It's also important to note that making a CRUD app that doesn't need to scale
is easier than making an actually interesting piece of software. Some people
aren't/think they aren't skilled enough to make anything else (yet).

> "There is such ignorance in this world about who we are. We are not
> criminals. We are innovators. We create things. We change the world.[...]"

While this does display narcissism, I think you're misinterpreting "we are not
criminals". I think in context this person is saying that "hacking" in the
context of hackathons is not what movie hackers do, breaking into networks and
stealing sensitive information.

> Students who believe to be 1000x SE because they can stick two APIs together
> and use bootstrap end-up to be very condescending older engineers.

Yeah, this is a thing. I think it's a part of getting good at something for
some people. I was certainly like this at around age 14 when I started being
able to make software that could be useful. Suddenly I thought I was some sort
of genius and looked down upon a lot of other people. I grew out of it, partly
by not being 14 anymore, and partly by being exposed to the wealth of things I
didn't know about.

> Hackathons are great to try out new technologies, meet new people and
> outreach to demographics that are traditionally under-represented in CS but
> I don't like where this is headed.

Show up to hackathons, make something technically interesting, and tell other
people about it. People _are_ intrigued by those willing to step outside the
normal realm of hackathon projects. I do this. I have some friends who do
this. If enough people go in with this attitude, eventually the culture will
change.

> Like HS there is "cool kids" who are "Student Entrepreneur" or "Innovator,
> UX Artist blah blah", "RoR Genius" etc... and the rest of the world.

There's not many people who behave like this, but the people who do are pretty
obnoxious. There _are_ a lot of people who associate with them but are
actually pretty down-to-earth and cool.

~~~
themusicgod1
> While this does display narcissism, I think you're misinterpreting "we are
> not criminals". I think in context this person is saying that "hacking" in
> the context of hackathons is not what movie hackers do, breaking into
> networks and stealing sensitive information.

"Criminals" do things like try to watch DVDs on Linux. "Criminals" use
encryption without giving the US government a key[2]. "Criminals" design
platforms that allow people to share information conveniently[3].

When you have people, even in 2015, in positions of power over technology law
and policy _who have never even used email[4]_ , we still have to worry that
the US government, and other governments who are similarly populated by such
illiterates will make people who want to develop, learn and share information
about technology "criminals"[5].

This isn't new, either[6]: During the duration of the US involvement of the
great war (1917-18) amateur wireless equipment was not legal to operate.
Instead of fully legalizing it afterwards, they brought in regulation to
control who had the ability to use what kind of equipment -- in effect taking
a generation of people who were tinkering with technology and taking the
commons that was the public airwaves and slowly beginning the process of
partitioning it into the state we have today, where iHeartMedia owns 850 radio
stations, wireless use is just now with wifi and cellphones beginning to be
something the public 'just does'...but only when they connect to large company
networks(eg comcast).

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Lech_Johansen](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Lech_Johansen)
[2] [http://www.androidpolice.com/2015/01/16/obama-goes-record-
en...](http://www.androidpolice.com/2015/01/16/obama-goes-record-encryption-
says-exist-able-decrypt/) [3] kim.com [4]
[http://www.businessinsider.com/lindsey-graham-says-he-has-
ne...](http://www.businessinsider.com/lindsey-graham-says-he-has-never-sent-
an-email-2015-3) [5] [https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-
read.html](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html) [6]
[https://plus.google.com/105395547687614433866/posts/WHHYbLcG...](https://plus.google.com/105395547687614433866/posts/WHHYbLcG7HF)

~~~
adrusi
Yeah. But this isn't what most "Hackathon Hackers" mean by "We are not
criminals". It's also not what OP was referring to when he criticize lack of
regard for civil liberties and tolerance of "unfair business practices".

I agree with most of what you said, but as I understand you are arguing that
radio should have been left unregulated? Wireless wouldn't work on the scale
we use it today if it weren't for these regulations. Or maybe _today_ we would
get by, working around interference, but 15 years ago we wouldn't have had the
tech. I'm sure there are better methods of regulation than partitioning the
spectrum, but radio anarchy is not one of them.

~~~
themusicgod1
> 15 years ago we wouldn't have had the tech

There was a whole community of dare I say hackers who were ready to innovate
around spectrum crowding at the dawn of the 20th century. They were
systematically removed from participating in radio technology, except as
passive consumers. Anarchy was working just fine up until then.

With all the power that Clearchannel has had, they could have been helping to
be part of that solution. Instead they've been allowed to be lazy, and reap
the benefits of a monopoly without contributing back in terms of advancement
on this problem.

Knowing whether or not they could have been able to do so is of course an open
question and as we learn how to do it right we can extrapolate whether they
were capable of it. We could have had Frequency-hopping spread spectrum
deployed decades earlier had the right mind been put to the task, and had
patents not gotten in the way.

------
MichaelCrawford
The Portland Startup Weekend presented itself as a way to get a new company
started, but they were blasting everyone's trade secrets all over facebook and
twitter. There was no discussion of taxation, nor how equity would be divided.

If you have the idea, I write the code, and angersock markets the product, how
do we divide the equity?

There are some good answers to that question but the Startup Weekend company -
a private, for-profit corporation - simply didn't address it, rather they got
angry with me when I brought it up.

~~~
empressplay
Yeah, I've had similar experiences with my regional Startup Weekend franchise
as well. The way they see it it's actually about coming up with a convincing
pitch. This isn't of course "starting a company" or even in most cases
developing a product. Instead, it's about coming up with an intriguing idea,
that since you're just at the starting line yourself, can be jumped on and
stolen by whoever else is there and has more startup capital than you do.

------
GFK_of_xmaspast
"I have met people who were justifying censorship, population control and
unfair business practices because they could benefit from them someday."

There's worse ahead of you, this is the same industry that employs people like
weev, Eric Raymond, mencius moldbug, and (sort of) Jerry Pournelle.

------
lnanek2
> People win by making "cool" apps (Uber for X) whereas technical hacks are
> totally ignored.

I think a hack is worthless if you can't get regular people interested in it,
so technical hacks are rightly failing. If you ever start doing indie app dev
you'll learn the same thing. It's easy to write esoteric technical tools and
apps targeted at developers. It's difficult to write something that will
achieve mass adoption and actually get a lot of usage. The latter has a lot
more impact on the world as well.

Even in industry the strong preference is for solutions that string two APIs
together as you say, rather than difficult technical solutions like you seem
to be advocating. Software Engineering advocates using libraries and services
over writing more code because it improves various metrics like maintenance,
enhancement, defects, etc..

