Ever seen a post saying “I’m a Norwegian woman, look what I made”? Your personal info is just as irrelevant. Please don’t destroy the balance of equality with it.
Let's be honest, a post titled this would probably skyrocket to the front page and devolve into arguing about women in tech within the first hour exactly how the I'm X old and made X posts devolve.
Because the metric is excellence. Realistically, you can't expect a 14 year old to produce something of the quality from someone with a decade more experience, all else being equal. But if they can produce something that is uncommonly ahead of your time, then you have a case for showing it off based on that fact, and it benefits the community to reward skill as early as possible and give people the opportunities that "fame" affords.
Age doesn't reflect on experience. There are 15 year olds that have half a decade of experience developing and there are 30 year olds that started last week.
The people that upvote "I'm 15 and this is my new app..." probably aren't going to upvote "I'm 30 and this is my new app..." but the latter could be a more impressive achievement.
> why mar the pride you should be feeling with manipulation?
Because the achievement is greater with context of the creator. It's actually more interesting when a 14 year old creates a mediocre iOS app compared to 24 year old. Similarly it's more interesting when a 6 year old runs a marathon or a 10 year old graduates college (yes, both happened).
Honestly it sounds like the writer is bitter for whatever reason. HN has a voting system where the most interesting things are voted to the top and accomplishing a lot at a young age is more interesting to the HN community.
>Honestly it sounds like the writer is bitter for whatever reason
Because the writer doesn't understand how important context is to understanding. The yc application isn't up right now, but I remember a question on it along the lines of "why you?" Reality is not a function of the event as event, but of the relationship of that event to past, and future, events.
I grow so weary of this community's combativeness.
Allow me to translate such a headline.
"I am [age] and I made [thing]"
actually means
"I am new at this. I know you guys aren't. I want you to check it out and give me encouragement and guidance."
Do they want attention? Of course! They believe, correctly, that the attention of more experienced people will lead to their growth. We should absolutely give it to them. You really think our typical bickering is a better use of time than mentoring the next generation?
Getting young people into science and technology is the single greatest professional duty any technologist has. We need help. We have more problems to solve than we can count. We have an entire planet of dumb objects waiting to be woken up. We need software written and interfaces designed for classes of products we can't even imagine yet.
So we need kids to grow up and choose the very, very hard work of learning to bend technology to their will. We need them to believe they can make careers out of it.
And we certainly need them to believe that when they get there, they won't be surrounded by assholes.
When a kid shows up sharing their work, you circle around them and hoist them on your damn shoulders. They're choosing the career that will make your life better one day. They're choosing the career that will broaden your hiring pool one day. They're, blessedly, choosing tech over drugs, drink, violence and investment banking.
Agree 100%. Also, I think it's a positive, because it means the poster is proactively thinking about how to get attention for his product, as opposed to being the "proud closeted genius".
Agree 100%. The OP has probably written this because of the 14 year old who developed an app (was on HN earlier). I found it so inspiring. Developing anything, especially apps, I imagine is not easy - I applaud anyone who can do it but the fact the person did it at such a young age was so impressive and made me think 'wow, if a 14 year old can do this then so can I, I should learn'.
If these types of posts piss you off so much, just ignore it. Half the time it is as though some on HN think they are forced to read every post. You're not. If you know something is going to piss you off, ignore it and read something else - there are plenty of articles to choose from.
This post is wrong on so many levels. It basically indicates that the author has zero recollection of being an awkward teenager without self-confidence.
As someone who was 15 and making Windows freeware in 1997, let me tell you - it mattered a whole world that people acknowledged that what I was doing was very impressive for a 15 year old. I actively told people that I was the author of X and that I was 15, specifically because I needed to gauge their reaction to see whether they thought I was sufficiently talented in the field to pursue it full time. In fact, if they hadn't done that then, I don't know if I today would be the reasonably successful software developer I am.
It is a very rare kid who has infinite internal confidence that what they are doing is good and worthwhile and will be appreciated by the world. Others need encouragement. So shut up, and get off the frontpage.
In general, I agree with this. I speak to someone that's younger in a different manner than I do someone who is an adult.
Not only that, I feel like someone starting out stands to be affected a lot more by negative feedback. In this case knowing the experience level gives me a chance to word my advice in such a manner as to help them improve while also encouraging them.
I'm sort of torn on this issue. In a lot of ways I really agree with this article. On the other hand, with my experience helping with a first-year college programming course I care, in a way, about the age/level of experience.
I might tailor, not my advice, but my manner of communicating to the age and experience level of the individual.
I really see both sides of this argument but would err on the side of preferring that people not mention their age. This is simply because it does always seem to devolve into an argument on whether or not they should have posted their age.
People keep on describing this as manipulation. In what way is it manipulation?
People upvote stories they think have interesting characteristics. If these stories are showing up on the front page, it's because people find them interesting. If people in the community are finding stories about young people creating things interesting, who are you to tell them this is invalid? Should we all use your standards when determining whether a story is interesting or not?
Rather than complain about what others find interesting, why don't you just not upvote those stories and not click on them? I bypass stories I don't think I'll find interesting every day, and I don't enter the comments section and complain about them.
"Valuable feedback, one of the main benefits of posting, will be buried under paragraphs vitriol. Why waste such a good opportunity?"
The solution to this is easy -- keep your vitriol to yourself.
Thanks for posting this. Also, I would think that one of the main goals of submitting your work to HN would be to get some valuable feedback. If you tell everyone, "I am only 12, check out what I made," many people will give you feedback based on your age. I don't think you want, or need, that. You want your work to be treated just like everyone else's. Because it doesn't matter how good your work is for somebody your age, what does matter is if your product is something people will want to use.
Speaking from experience, if you keep getting advice based on your age and if you keep comparing your work to other people your age, it will be a lot more difficult to get to that next level. Whereas, if you compare your work to just plain good work, you won't be able to say "Well, at least this is much better than most of what people my age are doing," which really means nothing because most people aren't doing shit.
Someone who is 12 wants and needs is exactly that. That's why we don't rate science projects made by 12 year olds by the same standard we rate Nobel Prize winners.
What's wrong with using every advantage you have? If it helps bring attention to your product, you should use it. Let's do a simple cost-benefit analysis:
Benefit: A lot of users are (cheaply) drawn to the post. Some snobby coders are going to be upset, but still check out your product so that they can complain about it.
Cost: Some really vindictive coders might go out of their way to slander you? (Man, I really hope not...)
But really, young people get angered when others don't take them seriously because of their age. I don't get why then some of them think that doing something at a young age is worth of praise by itself.
Best case scenario, It just sounds like those mobile email signatures, that excuse themselves for a crappy and short response.
Here's an idea: How about not arguing about whether or not age or sex or anything like that matters? The product is what it is and age does't change that. However, knowing the age of the person is invaluable to telling them how they can improve themselves. If you want to tell a person how to get to where they want to go, you need to know where they are.
Most of the kids intelligent enough to find this community and build something on their own are probably much more interested in sincere and helpful feedback than upvotes. If anything, upvotes are just a tool for them to get more visibility and therefore a better chance of good feedback. I know that's how I felt when I was their age. I think this community would be a lot better off it we spent our energy giving useful feedback to those who ask us for it instead of bickering over non-issues like this.
People here upvote what they find surprising or interesting (tech or science related stuff). If people find surprising that a kid that is starting high-school has been able to develop an app (and statistically, it's quite surprising), they upvote it.
If a kid thinks that some people might find interesting that he, being as old as he is, has developed an app, he has the right to submit his app to HN.
Generally, I don't know why we shouldn't submit what we think other geeks may find cool.
To be fair, my expectations of the work of a female norwegian programmer would be similar to my expectations of an American male programmer of a similar age.
If you have a programmer who is ~14 and they did something, you can assume a few things will be true:
They did it without any significant financial backing.
They did it part time, as they are probably legally required to be following a general education programme full time.
They did it without a formal degree level education. The most advanced math they have probably been exposed to is basic algebra and trig.
They did it with around max 5 years programming experience.
I suppose we should also strike from the history books any reference to Mozart's age regarding his musical accomplishments?
Using your age to promote your project is just another use of competitive advantage on another axis. Marketing is a big part of software, so if people are drawn by an unusual age (playing on the novelty factor), use it.
Also we should be encouraging more young people to enter the industry, not slapping them for being excited about it. No wonder more and more people see software engineers as vindictive jerks. Caramba.
41 comments
[ 21.2 ms ] story [ 501 ms ] threadLet's be honest, a post titled this would probably skyrocket to the front page and devolve into arguing about women in tech within the first hour exactly how the I'm X old and made X posts devolve.
I don't know why, but every time someone writes "loose" when they mean "lose" really bothers me. I need to work on that!
EDIT: Quote the relevant line from the post
It's annoying. My pet peeves are your/you're and their/they're; seems everyone on Facebook under 25 is mixing them up, all the time.
The people that upvote "I'm 15 and this is my new app..." probably aren't going to upvote "I'm 30 and this is my new app..." but the latter could be a more impressive achievement.
Because the achievement is greater with context of the creator. It's actually more interesting when a 14 year old creates a mediocre iOS app compared to 24 year old. Similarly it's more interesting when a 6 year old runs a marathon or a 10 year old graduates college (yes, both happened).
Honestly it sounds like the writer is bitter for whatever reason. HN has a voting system where the most interesting things are voted to the top and accomplishing a lot at a young age is more interesting to the HN community.
Because the writer doesn't understand how important context is to understanding. The yc application isn't up right now, but I remember a question on it along the lines of "why you?" Reality is not a function of the event as event, but of the relationship of that event to past, and future, events.
Allow me to translate such a headline.
"I am [age] and I made [thing]"
actually means
"I am new at this. I know you guys aren't. I want you to check it out and give me encouragement and guidance."
Do they want attention? Of course! They believe, correctly, that the attention of more experienced people will lead to their growth. We should absolutely give it to them. You really think our typical bickering is a better use of time than mentoring the next generation?
Getting young people into science and technology is the single greatest professional duty any technologist has. We need help. We have more problems to solve than we can count. We have an entire planet of dumb objects waiting to be woken up. We need software written and interfaces designed for classes of products we can't even imagine yet.
So we need kids to grow up and choose the very, very hard work of learning to bend technology to their will. We need them to believe they can make careers out of it.
And we certainly need them to believe that when they get there, they won't be surrounded by assholes.
When a kid shows up sharing their work, you circle around them and hoist them on your damn shoulders. They're choosing the career that will make your life better one day. They're choosing the career that will broaden your hiring pool one day. They're, blessedly, choosing tech over drugs, drink, violence and investment banking.
Celebrate them, for fuck's sake.
If these types of posts piss you off so much, just ignore it. Half the time it is as though some on HN think they are forced to read every post. You're not. If you know something is going to piss you off, ignore it and read something else - there are plenty of articles to choose from.
As someone who was 15 and making Windows freeware in 1997, let me tell you - it mattered a whole world that people acknowledged that what I was doing was very impressive for a 15 year old. I actively told people that I was the author of X and that I was 15, specifically because I needed to gauge their reaction to see whether they thought I was sufficiently talented in the field to pursue it full time. In fact, if they hadn't done that then, I don't know if I today would be the reasonably successful software developer I am.
It is a very rare kid who has infinite internal confidence that what they are doing is good and worthwhile and will be appreciated by the world. Others need encouragement. So shut up, and get off the frontpage.
Not only that, I feel like someone starting out stands to be affected a lot more by negative feedback. In this case knowing the experience level gives me a chance to word my advice in such a manner as to help them improve while also encouraging them.
I might tailor, not my advice, but my manner of communicating to the age and experience level of the individual.
I really see both sides of this argument but would err on the side of preferring that people not mention their age. This is simply because it does always seem to devolve into an argument on whether or not they should have posted their age.
Most great stories have some context to them.
So my question for op is: why do you want to diminish something by removing the context from the story?
People upvote stories they think have interesting characteristics. If these stories are showing up on the front page, it's because people find them interesting. If people in the community are finding stories about young people creating things interesting, who are you to tell them this is invalid? Should we all use your standards when determining whether a story is interesting or not?
Rather than complain about what others find interesting, why don't you just not upvote those stories and not click on them? I bypass stories I don't think I'll find interesting every day, and I don't enter the comments section and complain about them.
"Valuable feedback, one of the main benefits of posting, will be buried under paragraphs vitriol. Why waste such a good opportunity?"
The solution to this is easy -- keep your vitriol to yourself.
Speaking from experience, if you keep getting advice based on your age and if you keep comparing your work to other people your age, it will be a lot more difficult to get to that next level. Whereas, if you compare your work to just plain good work, you won't be able to say "Well, at least this is much better than most of what people my age are doing," which really means nothing because most people aren't doing shit.
Benefit: A lot of users are (cheaply) drawn to the post. Some snobby coders are going to be upset, but still check out your product so that they can complain about it.
Cost: Some really vindictive coders might go out of their way to slander you? (Man, I really hope not...)
Best case scenario, It just sounds like those mobile email signatures, that excuse themselves for a crappy and short response.
Most of the kids intelligent enough to find this community and build something on their own are probably much more interested in sincere and helpful feedback than upvotes. If anything, upvotes are just a tool for them to get more visibility and therefore a better chance of good feedback. I know that's how I felt when I was their age. I think this community would be a lot better off it we spent our energy giving useful feedback to those who ask us for it instead of bickering over non-issues like this.
People here upvote what they find surprising or interesting (tech or science related stuff). If people find surprising that a kid that is starting high-school has been able to develop an app (and statistically, it's quite surprising), they upvote it.
If a kid thinks that some people might find interesting that he, being as old as he is, has developed an app, he has the right to submit his app to HN.
Generally, I don't know why we shouldn't submit what we think other geeks may find cool.
To be fair, my expectations of the work of a female norwegian programmer would be similar to my expectations of an American male programmer of a similar age.
If you have a programmer who is ~14 and they did something, you can assume a few things will be true:
They did it without any significant financial backing.
They did it part time, as they are probably legally required to be following a general education programme full time.
They did it without a formal degree level education. The most advanced math they have probably been exposed to is basic algebra and trig.
They did it with around max 5 years programming experience.
Using your age to promote your project is just another use of competitive advantage on another axis. Marketing is a big part of software, so if people are drawn by an unusual age (playing on the novelty factor), use it.
Also we should be encouraging more young people to enter the industry, not slapping them for being excited about it. No wonder more and more people see software engineers as vindictive jerks. Caramba.