
Hackathons are bad for you - sayanee
http://chinpen.net/blog/2013/02/hackathons-are-bad-for-you/
======
rinon
I'll say this up front... I love hackathons (and similar events: ICFP
programming contest). I have fun hanging out with a bunch of like minded
people, and I find that I learn a ton when I force myself to sit down and
actually make something. I can certainly see the points about food/drink,
however, the events I've been to (and hosted a bit of) did have healthy
options. I think there would be a mass lynching if there weren't unhealthy
options too, but ah well, caveat emptor.

However! I actually don't think that occasional hackathons (everything in
moderation) is harmful to hacker culture. People do not model their lives
around hackathons. As a participant, I can tell you that I do not want to feel
that crappy on a regular basis under any circumstances. Rather, hackathons are
a reflection of a culture that already exists. Fix the culture, not the
results, because I'm sure that lack of good sleep, diet, and exercise are far
more pervasive and prevelant problems outside of hackathons.

------
mamoswined
I think the dysfunctional approach to "hackathons" described here leads to a
lot of people just not participating. Maybe it's a stereotype, but for myself
and other women I know, the idea of not getting enough sleep and eating crappy
food while working for hours and hours isn't very appealing at all.

An exception were the Food + Tech hackathons I went to when I lived in NYC.
They took place during the day and there was a variety of good food to eat no
matter what your food preferences were. I'd love to organize something like
that in Chicago.

I did try to organize a gourmet hack night but it didn't go so well. I got
duck confit on my keyboard.

------
TeMPOraL
Part of the confusion here is that, I think, people treat different kind of
hackatons differently. I took part in 48-hour coding contests long before they
were even called 'hackatons' (back then we called them Jams). Those are some
of the best coding experiences in my life. Working in small teams on something
fun and creative with tight deadline was absolutely exhilarating and
reinvigorating. But there's one caveat.

We did this _by ourselves, for ourselves_. For fun.

What I personally strongly dislike are the 'company hackatons', in which
developers from a company are basically tricked to do some unpaid work for the
company. In my opinion, it's dishonest. You can feel the difference in the air
- events that are created by the dev community for themselves to play and
improve just _smell different_ than the ones started by managers.

So for me, the problem with hackatons boils down to the problem of "fun" vs.
"work". Things started as fun, but they seem to be turning more and more into
work. Just like in case of SEO and the Web, it's all great until someone from
outside comes who wants to profit on this, and this is why we can't have nice
things.

------
hashbanged
We had an internal hackathon at work two weeks ago. I'm really new to the
industry and this was my first one and I gotta say I agree with this guy on
all counts.

It seems to mesh well with another part of the developers lifestyle though: a
severe lack of free time.

"But in the end, I really feel that Hackathons are beneficial less as a place
and time to code out your next big idea, but more of a time to mingle and bond
with the community. It’s like a gathering of the tribe. And personally, there
is more value in that than actually developing anything."

Perhaps in the future I will focus on hackathon projects that are technically
unstressful and allow me real time to bond and discuss with the community.

------
asveikau
I remember the first time I heard the word "hackathon" was in the context of
OpenBSD. The folks that worked on that were geographically distributed
throughout the world, and approximately once per year they'd meet in a hotel
in Canada and have their one chance to work collaboratively in person instead
of over email. It sounded cool.

I don't remember when I first heard the Bay Area usage of the word
"hackathon", but it sounded decidedly less cool.

------
saraid216
If you're attending _every single hackathon ever_ , you probably have problems
that aren't purely physical.

If you aren't, then recognize that occasional deviations from an otherwise
healthy schedule and lifestyle aren't lethal or actually bad.

------
mgkimsal
may be related...?

I was part of the 'startup weekend' in raleigh last april. Our team came in
2nd out of 20 (actually, there was a 3 way tie for 2nd).

Most other teams had somewhere between 4 and 8 developers or related technical
folks. Our team had 1 - me. I know other teams got mired in arguments about
what version of Rails to use, which gems, and various other technical trivia,
I had just me to answer to, and I got quite a lot done. Other teams got a lot
done too, no doubt, but one person just hacking with some non-dev minds to
bounce ideas off of was just as effective - perhaps moreso - than a team of
developers.

At the halfway point we chatted with another team. I showed what we'd (I) had
done, and one guy smirked some. He then showed their system - a mobile app
that did XYZ, had some neat features, and was pretty far along. Someone on my
team said "but we've only got one developer", and the guy changed his tune,
and became visibly impressed in what I'd been able to build in... at that
time, around 12 hours. They'd had a team of, I think, 6 devs.

The point is not that I'm some super coder, but that focused concentration and
time blocks with a handful of people _can_ get a lot done quickly.

------
pjreddie
At my last job I worked at a YC startup where the entire codebase was written
in the 3 months leading up to demo day when the team was under a lot of time
pressure. Sure it worked fine as a demo, but with the pace of startup land
this same code was then thrown into production and as the startup grew the
codebase couldn't quite keep up. There weren't many catastrophic failures but
there ended up being a lot of patching that had to happen on a daily basis. I
would say 80% of my time was spent tracking down weird bugs in the code and
trying to figure out what the hell the original authors were thinking when
they designed things so poorly.

The point is, you probably will write really bad code if you are under a lot
of time pressure. Hackathons seem like they are probably useful for some
things like bouncing around ideas and quickly fleshing stuff out but please,
for the love of god, if you decide to take your hackathon idea and run with it
DELETE ALL OF YOUR CODE. Just do it. Then take some time and think through
your overall design because trying to make major modifications when there are
paying customers relying on your site every day really sucks.

~~~
shuzchen
In my experience (at various hackathons, global game jams and startup
weekends), the tactic that's given me most success is to be very strict about
what features to implement, and to keep any unfamiliar technologies at a
minimum. When you only have so much time, don't waste it writing profile
settings pages (why even have auth at all? everyone just types in a username
and they're logged in as that person now!), don't waste time dealing with any
browser compatibility (just program for chrome, or whatever tablet you're
going to demo on). There are so many things that I've seen other people mess
around with that just wastes your time and energy.

Regarding unfamiliar technologies, choose a stack you're used to (that way,
you don't waste time debugging/googling how to do something) and use whatever
helps you get things done fast. If anything, have one unknown thing in the mix
so you can take advantage of the learning opportunity. Just make sure that
thing is necessary for the product you're working on of course - for example,
use mongodb's geospatial indexes for that geo-aware app, or try out d3 for
those nifty interactive charts, or use websockets/zeromq for a real-time
system.

------
adamsaleh
I have never experienced a hackathon, most similar thing that comes to my
mind, that I was part of are hackfests on some open-source conferences and
those were pretty great.

Usualy a hackfest meant bunch of coders interested in a project sitting in a
room for ~5 hours and doing bug fixing, new features, or just discussing.
Everything is good in moderation, I guess.

------
Kurtz79
Disclaimer: I have never been in a hackaton.

That said, I simply don't think it's something people do every day, or every
week, or frequently enough so that can severely alter one's lifestyle.

The author makes some good points, but they really apply to a more general
day-to-day lifestyle.

There is nothing inherently damaging in a hackaton if you normally get enough
sleep, eat healtily etc...

------
gailees
Large-scale Hackathons are the best thing that's ever happened. I've learned
new languages/frameworks, tools, platforms, and even learned nearly everything
I know about programming at hackathons.

Its hard to find a better environment for learning than one in which you are
building something you are passionate about and overcoming obstacles like
nobodys business with a hard external deadline and plenty of incentive without
having to even worry about getting food/drinks/anything at all.

~~~
Jare
Wow you conjured images of cocaine addicts in my head. Or the less ominous
'sugar rush'. Hackathons should be peaks of activity / motivation / energy,
not THE place where you learn 'nearly everything'. You need to find a way to
motivate yourself in a calm and relaxed environment.

~~~
gailees
Coming from zero experience in programming, there wasn't a better place to
begin learning. Where better to begin learning than in a room full of top-
notch programmers and experts who are 100% willing to help you out?

------
nthnb
Hackathons are just a formalization of what we already do when we're building
something we care about. Everyone should take care of themselves but if you
care deeply about something and want to change the world, hacking all night
once in a while can be invigorating.

------
tg3
> Working late into the night and not sleeping for days is lauded and almost
> considered a necessity by many these days.

> And leaving long-term health out of the equation, lack of sleep hasn’t been
> known to improve your focus or the ability to be logical or creative, all of
> which are critical skills for developers.

For me personally, I code late at night because it's the only time during the
day when I can truly be distraction-free. No incoming emails, no meetings, no
phone calls, no running into people. Coding happens best when you can
concentrate for long periods of time [1], and the best time to concentrate is
when the rest of the world is asleep. YMMV.

[1] <http://www.paulgraham.com/head.html>

~~~
laumars
I totally agree with that, 100%.

I just wish I didn't have to get up again in the morning.

~~~
nirvanatikku
or that there were more hours in a day :)

------
qdot76367
The best piece of advice that no one ever seems to give about hackathons:

\--

Hackathons may or may not be for you. Try it once. Don't stay the whole time
if you don't want. If they aren't for you, don't go again. If they are, great,
have an awesome time.

\--

For some reason, they're touted as this end-all be-all social event that if
you don't go to YOU ARE MISSING OUT AND YOU WILL NEVER RECOVER. As many people
posted here, the situation's combination of adrenaline and seratonin depletion
gets people into some pretty seriously fucked mental states that causes odd
group dynamics. Some will thrive on this. Some hate it.

Case in point: I grew up in the rural midwest, but had computers. So computers
are something I deal best with in situations with little to no people around.
Hackathons are the opposite of that. Took me like, 2 attendances to realize
that, and now I just avoid them. Hell, I even avoid career situations that put
me in that environment, because I don't work well there.

Not to say I haven't pulled some insanely stupid hours in my time, but I still
even did most of those alone, and I'll continue to do so.

~~~
pjungwir
This is sane advice.

I've attended two hackathons. The first was for Open Government projects, and
it was well-organized and low-pressure. I didn't pull an all-nighter, but I
doubt anyone did. I attended the whole thing and really enjoyed myself.

The other was a much bigger affair with at least as many biz folk and
designers as programmers. I was pitched on all kinds of half-baked ambitious
ideas. It seemed like a big scheme to get programmers to build MVPs on spec.
After the first night I didn't go back.

Something I like a lot that is much more sustainable is weekly "hack nights."
Here in Portland we have many of these. Generally they meet at a pub, and
there are maybe 10 people who show up, work on the side projects, and
socialize. I've found those to be great: you meet people, you catch up, and
you get a little done. And around 10 or 11 you go home.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
That sounds pretty nice. What's the overall tech scene like in Portland?

------
Ovid
I am totally lost by this post. I've attended several hackathons, but they're
nothing like what's described. They tend to be 9-to-5 affairs stretched out
over several days. The food at the last one had a lot of fruit, healthy
sandwiches, plenty of water, juice, coffee, tea, (and yes, some junk food). We
saved the boozing for dinner.

And the hackathons _weren't_ a distraction. Yes, some people ran around and
talked a lot and there was definitely socializing going on (if you're not a
people person, a hackathon may not be for you), but really: a lot of the talk
was with people who were experts in the problem area we were gathered to deal
with and this made us so much more productive. I've been to five or six
hackathons now and generally just about everyone turns out plenty of great
stuff there.

We got a lot of great stuff done, had some fun, caught up with old friends and
got to visit a new country (well, not me. The hackathon was here in Paris).

~~~
rtkwe
That's the problem with "X is bad/terrible" posts. They focus on one
interpretation or implementation then focuses on the bad parts of that one
version of the concept. Are late night sleep deprived coding fests terrible
ideas as a sustainable lifestyle/development style? Yes. Is that the point of
all (or even most) hackathons? No.

------
stormbrew
Sometimes people do things that aren't exactly healthy because they enjoy
doing them.

------
davidkassa
I'm at a work-sponsored hackathon right now! It's an annual thing so there's
novelty. Several a year would be quite rough.

------
zestyping
The most serious problem with hackathons is that many of them create the
misconception that anyone can build a product in a weekend. Most cannot.

A few can build a great prototype; an even smaller miniscule few can build a
product. But most hackathon participants produce either no code at all or
terrible code.

This is fine if all you want is to make friends or build working relationships
or make a throwaway prototype.

But, if you want to make a lasting code contribution, it's almost certainly
got to be a small feature or bugfix on an established project, for which the
problem definition, skill set required, and relevant parts of the codebase
were documented in some detail before the hackathon. Very few hackathons have
this level of preparation.

Better preparation or better expectation-setting -- that's what is needed.

~~~
raylu
I don't think anybody expects to build a great product during just the
hackathon and I'm not sure where you got this impression.

------
DigitalSea
Hackathons to me have almost been about pushing developers to the limits
within a 24/36 hour time frame for free, an excuse used by companies to
exploit the "hacker" gimmick and keep most of the IP afterwards. Give them
some beer, some pizza and energy drinks and make them stare at a screen all
night. I often code at night, but I would never code 24 hours straight, let
alone 36 hours.

I only ever entered one hackathon and it wasn't as great as some would tell
you. The peer pressure you feel to keep going even when you feel like you're
going to pass out from exhaustion is immense. Not a great feeling and I
wouldn't recommend it, the fun part is overrated.

~~~
megablast
> and keep most of the IP afterwards

I have never been to a hackathon where anyone else got to keep the IP, and I
have been to about 30.

I am not sure what pressure you are talking about, I always found them great
fun.

~~~
benatkin
Apparently internal company hackathons are a thing.

~~~
thisone
I don't know how most places do them, but when something similar was suggested
in my place, it was all weekend hack for the company's brand's benefit without
us devs getting paid for it.

Yay Fun! (sigh)

------
rlu
sigh

it's meant to be fun. As long as you're not doing them all the time - who
cares?

------
adeaver
I've done a couple hackathons and while I did lose a good amount of sleep and
loaded up on caffeine I found them to be fun and thoroughly enjoyable.

Too be honest I didn't find them any different than the times I have picked up
a new game or book and stayed up all night playing/reading or spent time with
friends playing marathons tournaments.

Hackathons are no better or worse than a majority of the other things we do,
they just happen to be sponsored events where you don't spend all your own
money on junk food.

------
dquail
The energy, collaboration, exposure to new technology, people, ideas,
creativity … far outweighs the cons here. No one’s forcing you to stay until
5AM and eat nothing but skittles and trail mix.

------
jami
I've only been to hackathons that last eight hours tops and usually involve
terrific beer and food (ahh, Portland...).

Especially as a mom with a full-time job, I love the focus on getting things
done at hackathons, as contrasted with other nerd gatherings, where the focus
is on chit-chat.

Startup Weekend's 48 hours with no sleep model sounds very unhealthy to me,
but an excuse to crunch away at a side project for a few hours with free beer
and friendly nerds? Yes, please.

------
Moto7451
A couple points from my experiences, which are really just a sample of
corporately sponsored hackathons in LA:

1\. In about 6 hackathons over the course of the year, none had alcohol and
only one had a post event get together at a bar (Startup Weekend).

2\. Generally speaking the food tends to be pretty good quality if you behave
yourself. I've never been to one where fruit and salad weren't available. You
can drink a gallon of soda and eat a lot of fattening food if you prefer.

3\. If you're paying attention you'll find that the people who leave at a
decent hour, sleep, and come back early rested and refreshed get more done.
I've always finished every project I've been a part of because I stay sharp.

------
Tichy
Or learn from women: the Berlin Geekettes provided "real food" and a
relaxation area with a Yoga coach for their Hackathon
<http://berlingeekettes.github.com/hackathon/>

------
mncolinlee
I disagree with his insistence that one must lose sleep to win a hackathon.

Our >40k employee corporation had our first annual corporate hackathon in
2012. I led the team of six that beat forty-seven other teams to win the whole
hackathon. No one on my team took any less than twelve hours off between day
one and day two.

A hackathon is about developing an impressive minimum viable product and demo.
It is not about building a finished product.

------
YZF
When I was much younger (high school) I used to stay up all night with
friends, code, drink Coke, eat unhealthy foods - for fun. No exchange of
currency involved. Then I would go and sleep until 2PM. Now I can't do that
any more.

The other point is that even activity that is generally considered healthy,
like sports, when forced upon you by various means, is going to be a negative.
Forcing someone to run adds stress. Running because you enjoy it and want to
run reduces stress.

------
richo
Alcohol is bad for you. So is going outside and waking up every morning.

I enjoy doing these things in moderation though, do we need more nanny stating
to tell me what I can enjoy doing?

~~~
jd007
@_@ how is going outside and waking up every morning bad for you like alcohol?

~~~
TeMPOraL
You can get hit by a car. Or fall from the stairs. Also, air outside is
unhealthy in big cities. And then there're the UV rays.

~~~
minimize_me
This line of logic could be used as a justification for doing anything. "Meth
is bad for you? So is going outside, cos pollution or something."

~~~
esrauch
The logic does not prove that something is worth doing, it proves that the one
particular argument for something being not worth doing is invalid. "This can
lead to hypothetical bad result x" isn't a valid argument by itself, meth is
only bad because the badness is sufficiently bad enough, not simply because it
is not the healthiest possible choice.

It is a fallacy to assume that if a particular argument is wrong that the
opposite of its conclusions must be true. You can easily think everything the
blog post says is incorrect and also think hackathons are bad.

------
rogeriopvl
Moderation is the key. If you attend hackathons often, it really has negative
impact on your health, just like spending all weekend nights in a disco,
drinking alcohol until morning also does (and allot more people do the
latter).

------
mattbarrie
Stop being a party pooper. They are a good way to do something different,
unleash some creativity and have some fun.

------
abraham
Hackathons are what you make of them:
[http://blog.abrah.am/2013/03/hackathons-are-what-you-make-
of...](http://blog.abrah.am/2013/03/hackathons-are-what-you-make-of-them.html)

------
jasonlotito
Maybe the author has had a run of bad luck, or I've been lucky in the numerous
hackathons I've attended, but I've never been a part of a hackathon where it
met his "standard recipe for a Hackathon."

------
jrockway
Caffeine isn't a diuretic if you use it regularly. From Wikipedia: "Regular
users of caffeine have been shown to develop a strong tolerance to the
diuretic effect, and studies have generally failed to support the notion that
ordinary consumption of caffeinated beverages contributes significantly to
dehydration, even in athletes."

~~~
trafficlight
As a consumer of copious amounts of caffeinated beverages, I have anecdotal
evidence to back this up.

~~~
neurotech1
As someone who has consumed copious * 10 amounts of caffeine, I would
disagree. The tolerance to the diuretic effect isn't that much. What some
people refer to as "tolerance" is more the effect of dehydration. Of course,
drinking large quantities of water to balance the large quantities of
caffeinated beverages isn't a brilliant idea either..

~~~
papsosouid
As others have posted, scientific evidence shows no diuretic effect. You are
peeing a lot because you are drinking a lot. You would have to pee just as
much if you were drinking water.

------
alanctgardner2
All of these are valid criticisms, but in my mind a hackathon is a treat:
pizza, soda and staying up all night is fun sometimes, regardless of whether
you play Halo, watch movies, or write a cool app. I agree with a lot of the
comments that say you can't get much done; it's mostly a case of connecting
existing libraries and data sources to create a sort of 'mash-up'.

That said, being able to prototype quickly is an awesome skill, and it
completely exercises different parts of my skillset than my normal job. Going
from coding a large C application, to hacking together a Ruby app is a very
refreshing experience. Maybe if you spend your whole day working on the same
stack in the same domain, it's less fun.

Finally, it's a good way to get something you've had in mind done. If your
whole life isn't made of crunches, the occasional high-stress, urgent deadline
situation is (once again) a welcome change. For people who work under these
conditions all the time, yeah, it's probably not fun.

~~~
wreckimnaked
Hackatons are fun. I don't get the point of saying that hanging out with
people with similar, drinking beer and eating pizza is somehow bad for you.
Maybe is about seeing it less as a competition and more like a regular social
event.

~~~
equalarrow
I think the bigger issue here is not that they can't be fun, it's, basically,
coding under duress and how society views programmers. Sure, if you're going
to a hackathon to party and hang out, then it's not really a hackathon - it's
a party. If you have to produce a usable result, then you will fail.

The op is absolutely right - we are constrained by our physical bodies and
they require the proper fuel and rest in order to operate at peak efficiency.
Just because you're using your brain instead of certain muscles, doesn't mean
you can consume garbage. This isn't a bad on your comment as much as is it a
comment on society as a whole. The whole Zuck bs legend has really damaged
programming on multiple levels and it completely reject that ethos.

I've worked with devs that ate garbage all day, couldn't sleep, always came in
late (they were non-drinkers too) and their job performance sucked. Their
attention sucked. Their attitude sucked. Their code sucked. Needless to say
they were all fired. But alas, this is a tale not about the voices of reason,
but of bs movies and news headlines and even tho the op is critical
(realistic?) of this, that opinion I'm sure is in the minority.

~~~
baby
> if you're going to a hackathon to party and hang out, then it's not really a
> hackathon

so a hackathon is only coding without socializing to get victory? Accept that
people don't generally see hackaton as a competition but as a place to have
fun.

> we are constrained by our physical bodies and they require the proper fuel
> and rest in order to operate at peak efficiency

yes, and a hackaton can't ask people to gather somewhere they don't
necessarily live for days, weeks, etc...

------
mmahemoff
Agreed on food and drink.

At least provide healthy options, particularly bottled/filtered water instead
of just soft drinks and booze.

~~~
hdra
Especially agreed on the drinks part.

The organizers of last 2 hackathon I participated seems to think that there is
no meaning in providing plain water when they have soft drinks for the event.
Not to mention the event was held in a pretty remote event. I had to drive 20
minutes to get a drink that don't make my mouth feels like ant feeds.

------
gr33nman
Lack of sleep alters human gene activity
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5298948>

------
codeme
I think Hackathons are still a good way to meet like minded people and find
co-founders.

~~~
funkyboy
I agree. I'd trade some stomach pain (due to junk food) to get the opportunity
to meet someone like minded, or with skills complementing mine, so that some
friendship/collaboration/startup) can start.

------
spullara
...said by someone that is no good at hackathons. :)

Honestly though, hack on something you can finish in a few hours and go home
and come back the next day to tell people about it. I'm still running
twickery.com from the last F8 opengraph hackathon I went to. Spent a few hours
and still use it now.

Hackathons give you an excuse to scratch an itch, learn something new and
challenge yourself.

~~~
thisone
I find it odd that internal motivation could be so low that someone would need
to wait for an external motivation, like a hackathon, in order to do something
they wanted to do, like learn something new or challenge themselves.

~~~
petercooper
Sometimes it's about having an excuse to make the time. I like the idea of
building small games but I can never find the time until I specifically book a
weekend "off" to do Ludum Dare.

------
baby
They are bad because they're bad for health. Bouhou. So are LANs. And it makes
it fun. Why complain about it?

------
paranoiacblack
The hacker community is pretty interesting. Someone hosts an event and brings
a bunch of random junk and alcohol, telling people to get cracking on cool
ideas. People don't get sleep, sit around, partake in random junk and alcohol,
and it's the event's fault somehow. Pretty interesting.

------
fakeer
Attended one sometime back. What hit me was that they didn't even bother to
bring water and they remembered when I needed some. Needless to say there was
pizza(and the way it was spread around was "yuck"), there was soft drink and
beer and there was no water; neither any fruit or even trace of some healthy
food or just food.

Nothing new or innovative came out other than sore backs, necks and a guy
puking. Yes, there were some 'nice' hacks like _"this guy build this using
that hooking into that that API and showing this again"_.

Midway, I felt like sleeping - there wasn't any space and I was sort of looked
down upon with scorn - as in "he doesn't belong here". Well, I didn't. I had
built a little web app that did some basic(very) search with Tw/Fb. Nth I
would like to see or ponder over again. I slept in a corner anyway(had my
sleeping bag).

Bad thing it wasn't fun either.

Moral of the story - it's good for sort of a meet-up, not for 'breaking the
ground' with your ideas :-)

And if you have to organize one - make sure there's _food_ , water and some
place to rest. Proper lighting which can be adjusted in different
corners/parts of the hall(or the large room).

 _PS_. And yes, keep it spacious and airy. Man is a messy animal :-\

------
brador
It's a hackathon. The whole point is to push yourself.

~~~
cpressey
I don't have enough karma to downvote this comment, so I'm going to upvote
every comment underneath it.

------
i386
Link is dead. Anyone got this in their cache?

~~~
jaredsohn
Article text (there were also about three images):

Hackathons are bad for you.

I love developer communities. I love the spirit, the comradery and energy. But
in the last couple of years or so, Hackthons have spread through the community
like a plague. There are Hackathons around technologies, ideologies and
everything in between. And I feel there is an urgent need to eradicate them.

Here is my main beef with Hackathon. They’re encouraging and spreading a
perverse culture of unhealthy lifestyle and unsustainable workflow which has
been made popular by sensational media and film.

Here’s a standard recipe for a Hackathon.

Gather a bunch of developers in a location. Supply them copious amounts of
junk food, booze and caffeine. Tell them to get cracking for 24hrs. Sounds
familiar?

Sleep

There is an almost masochistic take on sleep deprivation in the developer
community. (It might be true with other professions, but let’s focus on the
devs.) Working late into the night and not sleeping for days is lauded and
almost considered a necessity by many these days. Hackthons, many of which
last 24hrs, only serve to glorify that.

It is well-known that sleep deprivation has only negative effects on health.
Sadly, popular culture in the community has only strengthened the indifference
towards health. Y-combinator’s popularized (and prefered?) archetype for
founder/developers who eat ramen and code into the night, or the life of Mark
Zuckerberg as showcased in the movie The Social Network only make things
worse.

And leaving long-term health out of the equation, lack of sleep hasn’t been
known to improve your focus or the ability to be logical or creative, all of
which are critical skills for developers.

When was the last time you wrote a piece of code while being totally sleep
deprived, and looked at it after you woke up to say it was the most beautiful,
elegant and awesome piece of code you’ve ever written?

A good nights rest and a fresh mind are critical for a good developer, that’s
one thing that Hackathons completely miss.

Food and Drink

Next to sleep, your body needs good fuel to keep going. And NO! I don’t mean
coffee. As much as I love my coffee, binging on coffee, red bull or is rarely
good for focus. Not to mention alcohol, which makes matters worse.

It’s a short-term vs long-term trade-off. Coffee (and possibly alcohol,
although I am skeptical abt it), do help you feel more focused in the short-
term. But both caffeine and alcohol are diuretics and only make you lose more
water in the long-term. A dehydrated body isn’t much of a help when you need
your brain to focus and solve problems. “When was the last time you saw an
isotonic drink at a Hackathon?”

Junk food isn’t much of a help to that. I am not even going to touch on long-
term effects of eating high carb diets. The usual Hackathon menu of pizza and
candy is full of carbohydrates. While sugar highs are great for short-term
focus (maybe??) you tend to feel hungry very quickly after a carb heavy meal.
That only means you going around for another round of pizza/candy etc. Not
really the best way to focus is it?

Sedentary lifestyle

More and more research is showing a link between a sitting lifestyle and
health issues. Developers are unfortunate to have a job which is inherently
sedentary. Hackthons again make it worse by inciting developers to sit at the
same place for 24hrs. “I’m sure your back will thank you at the end of that!”.

And what’s worse is since most Hackathon are held on weekends, the one day you
usually get to be active is also spent being sedentary.

Distraction

Hackathons are distraction. There are a ton of things going on. People are
talking, discussing ideas, giving talks or just hanging out. All that is
competing for your attention while you need to focus. Add caffeine to that mix
and that’s one hell of a party on thought in your mind. Noise cancelling
headphones help, but then what’s the point?

Solutions?

I’m pretty sure there are better ways to organize hackthons. Having them over
2 days of 12hrs slots would be an idea, to combat sleep deprivation. Supplying
and encouraging healthier eating and drinking options would be really useful.
Fruits, nuts, and other healthy food are options. Similarly with drink, having
access to isotonic drinks and lots of plain water should be a priority.
Encouraging participants to do physical activities like calisthenics or just
going out for walks on a regular schedule are options to consider.

But in the end, I really feel that Hackathons are beneficial less as a place
and time to code out your next big idea, but more of a time to mingle and bond
with the community. It’s like a gathering of the tribe. And personally, there
is more value in that than actually developing anything.

TL;DR; : Hackthons promote unhealthy lifestyle. If you’re organizing one, urge
your participants to hydrate regularly, eat healthy meals and take regular
breaks where they do some type of physical activities.

~~~
notthetup
OP Here. Apologies for not being able to keep the link up. Should be up now.
:)

------
kevinconroy
Hackathons run by companies have always seemed to me to be a way for them to
unleash creative thinking without having to devote significant company time to
it or make strategic tradeoffs.

The best companies find a way to build the spirit of hackathons into the daily
culture and provide scheduled, dedicated time to do this during normal
business hours.

That being said, if you're young and have no kids then hackathons are probably
a lot of fun. After you have other commitments in life, it just doesn't work.

~~~
scottporad
"Hackathons run by companies have always seemed to me to be a way for them to
unleash creative thinking without having to devote significant company time to
it or make strategic tradeoffs."

Yes. The internal hackathons I've been involved with have taught me a lot
about a) problems developers face that they're motivated to fix, and b) areas
developers are personally interested in and motivated to put forth some
effort. (I suppose those are sort of the same thing, although what I meant by
the first was fixing problems, and the second was introducing new features or
products.)

~~~
Isofarro
The internal hackathons at Yahoo (Europe) were essentially an exercise in
futility. They jumped on the hackathon bandwagon, but were unprepared to deal
with the after effects of a hackday - what to do with these ideas.

From what I saw, hackday was used to pretend the organisation cared about the
ideas of it's engineers and web developers, but at a safe enough distance not
to affect their product roadmap. When push came to shove we were all
enthusiastically encouraged to patent our ideas, because it protects us from
evil people stealing all our ideas. Naturally I refused.

The Yahoo Open Hackdays also, was an exercise in futility. Yahoo didn't do
anything with ideas generated, or encouraged the people who attended and built
something. It was just a two day event over a weekend where a venue was
populated by groups of people who may be building something, or not.
Esssentially it was just a marketing ploy to get developers using the Yahoo
APIs for a weekend.

Looking at that, these hackdays offered no value. I don't need a hackday /
hack-weekend to work on ideas I consider interesting. I don't need to be in a
noisy drafty building where the roof opens up during a thunderstorm (
[http://developer.yahoo.com/blogs/ydn/posts/2007/06/hack_day_...](http://developer.yahoo.com/blogs/ydn/posts/2007/06/hack_day_report/)
).

I gave up on the internal hackdays, after participating in two: winning one,
and getting a notable mention for the second. Ideas are no good gathering dust
on the shelf. And all hackdays accomplished was for the company to have an
inkling on the ideas I was working on in my own time, so they could decide to
claim ownership if they liked.

Open Hackdays are only useful to meet up with people you haven't seen for a
long time. So having free beer and pizza is useful, I guess.

To be honest, the things I did gain from being at an open hackday:

* Watching James Aylett build a social network from scratch, and fully unit-tested. That demolished most of my reservations of unit-testing and development agility.

* Meeting some of fine Yahoo US folk during that time: Ryan Kennedy and Dav Glass.

* The internal hackday win led me to meeting David Filo to give him a quick demo. Not often I meet people who are also Wikipedia entries.

~~~
equalarrow
Does Yahoo ever do anything with the ideas generated in house? ;)

~~~
tommorris
Yahoo! could have marketed their everyone-has-to-work-in-the-office thing as
"hackathon, everyday in the office!"

------
jbackus
Health isn't everyone's first priority. It certainly shouldn't be viewed as a
first priority in every context.

~~~
qdot76367
Yup, which is why those of us that do care about our health just can't wait to
maintain the code of those that feel this way after they either die young or
end up feeble and unable to maintain themselves much less their projects!

Your brain and whatever else on your body you're currently using to get code
from brain to computer are surrounded by a lot things that are important to
keep them running and talking to each other. Forget that, and they'll stop.
Quickly, and painfully.

~~~
jbackus
Yup, and I never said I was advocating extremities either. I'm simply pointing
out that short cuts can be appropriate some times.

~~~
lutusp
> Yup, and I never said I was advocating extremities [sic] either.

What -- you're against the idea of fingers and toes? Or did you mean
"extremes"?

~~~
jbackus
ex·trem·i·ty (k-strm-t)

n. pl. ex·trem·i·ties

1\. The outermost or farthest point or portion.

~~~
lutusp
Yes -- the OP clearly meant "extremes," as in "I never said I was advocating
extremes either."

<http://www.thefreedictionary.com/extreme>

Quote:

1\. Most remote in any direction; outermost or farthest: _the extreme edge of
the field_.

2\. Being in or attaining the greatest or highest degree; very intense:
extreme pleasure; extreme pain.

3\. Extending far beyond the norm: an extreme conservative. _See Synonyms at
excessive._

4\. Of the greatest severity; drastic: _took extreme measures_ to conserve
fuel.

------
michaelochurch
The real crime is that programmers have so little time for the exploratory
work that the career _requires_ that they have to do all of that off-hours.

Doctors can read medical journals and call it "working time". Most programmers
have feces thrown at them if they're caught learning on the job. This is just
something we have to suffer until we develop a stronger tribal identity and
demand the conditions of a profession (including ethical rights and
obligations that supersede immediate managerial authority).

Do surgeons spend 40 hours per week, 50 weeks per year, cutting open bodies?
Of course not. No one would allow it. They work a full work-week, but they
spend a lot of that time keeping current with the field. That's how
professions are supposed to work. Your metered work obligation is ~15 hours
per week, and the other 25-40 you spend keeping current, networking, and
performing other off-meter, self-directed work that is important to you and
the profession.

Now, hackathons. There are two things one should know about that. The first is
that the association of programming with the night hours is a bit of cultural
legacy. Forty years ago, when computing resources were shared and scarce,
night was the only time you could get low-priority (exploratory) jobs to run.
So the hobbyists (young people, usually with access through a connection or
favor) did their work at night. Now, we have enough in the way of resources
that people can work at any time. Some people are most productive between 6
and 10 in the morning. Others are best from 8 pm to midnight. Whatever works.

The second is that hackathons seem, in many organizations, to exist to
recapture the college lifestyle for people who haven't realized yet that It's
Gone Forever. The hackathon recreates the "good old days" (?) of the 3:00 am,
caffeine-fueled coding fests to get that hard-ass final project to work. It's
not terribly unhealthy when you're a college student and have that kind of
schedule autonomy (you can crash for a week) but it's a _terrible_ idea to mix
that lifestyle with the 9-to-5 regular workday. Also, most final projects are
Done, submitted for a grade, and never need to be looked at again. This isn't
the case for real-world software.

I tend to see most company's 20%-time and hack-day programs as negative spaces
that define anything programmers actually enjoy as "not real work" (because
they can be tricked into doing it "for free"). I can't even count the number
of times I've seen people using 20%T programs to do things that, if they
didn't have short-sighted imbeciles for managers, would just be regular-ol'
working time.

~~~
crusso
_Doctors can read medical journals and call it "working time"_

Where did you get that idea? I grew up in a family of doctors. If they aren't
seeing patients, they aren't billing. They go to school an unthinkably long
number of years and then they're put into a sleep depravation nightmare called
"interning" for years before they get to have a career that normally includes
"on call time" where they're woken up at all hours of the night to go save
someone's life.

Sitting around reading journals is what they do on their off time. Everything
in your analogy is wrong.

~~~
michaelochurch
Perhaps I shouldn't have picked medicine as an example. The principle of
professionalism is sound, but many of the traditional professions have
departed from it. Law has outright imploded, while medicine has seen very long
hours on account of the doctor shortage.

 _If they aren't seeing patients, they aren't billing._

Right, but 2000 hours per year wasn't traditionally the requirement. That may
have changed. The professions have declined over the past 30 years.

For example, before the legal profession went to hell, 1200 billable hours was
the requirement. Remaining time was for networking, keeping current, attending
conferences, etc. If you billed 1500 hours, you were a rock star and
guaranteed to make partner. Enough money was made in the billed hours to pay
for the off-meter stuff.

 _They go to school an unthinkably long number of years and then they're put
into a sleep depravation nightmare called "interning" for years_

That is true. Medical school and residency are extremely difficult.

 _before they get to have a career that normally includes "on call time" where
they're woken up at all hours of the night to go save someone's life._

Obviously, medicine can't be limited to the 9-to-5 hours, because people get
sick all the time.

Regarding the very long work weeks, this problem was at least partially
created by the AMA. They've been limiting medical school admissions to keep an
artificial shortage of doctors. That has created an environment in which
working hours are much more than they used to be.

~~~
ameister14
I don't think your point about the AMA is entirely accurate; I know people
that have been practicing medicine for 40 years and they would disagree about
the increase in hours per week; in fact, residents now have a cap on the
number of hours per week they can work, something that didn't exist in the
past.

A bigger problem with the AMA is that it's made up almost entirely of
academics and yet wields a massive amount of power over the government's
decisions regarding clinical practice.

The thing you might not realize is that in order to maintain board
certification, doctors HAVE to read periodicals and go to conferences. There's
a continuing education requirement so that they stay current.

~~~
jrs235
"A bigger problem with the AMA is that it's made up almost entirely of
academics" followed by "There's a continuing education requirement so that
they stay current."

Which is the the fox guarding the hen house. The academics controlling the AMA
guarantee their own paychecks. And as you said this, academics controlling the
AMA, is the bigger problem. It leads to a huge conflict of interests.

