If you don't like them you don't attend them it is as simple. For me hackathons are great place to meet people with familiar interests and share experience.
I Landed my last job by meeting someone at a hackathon.
I found my current mid/long-term project doing another hackathon
with the same person where we had the opportunity to develop a prototype
and see that it worked.
I like hackathons because it's the only way for me to have two full days
to actually _make_ something.
The author is building alternatives: civic hacking meetups. So for people who hack the institutions around them, it never has to be as simple as going or not.
Personally, this cultural critique is far more interesting than any hackathon I've seen. I was even at a company which hilariously tried using hackathons to pay off technical debt, instead of simply scheduling it. (The damned Scrum Master was surprised I had no intention of staying during weekends; somehow he thought this plan would overjoy me, since I claimed we mismanaged technical debt.)
I've never heard of this kind of hackaton. These sound like startup-thons. All those I've attended have been more in the spirit "come and hack on whatever you want, discuss ideas, show of your work" which I think has been great.
I agree with some of these points and I understand why some folks don't like hackathons. I especially understand why some don't like company hackathons or PR hackathons.
I go to about one or two of them per year, am 36 years old, and here's what I DO like about 'generic' hackathons - that have no single sponsor:
- It's a break from my daily routine (I work from home, so its good to mingle)
- It's a lot of fun and I meet smart like-minded people.
- I get to laser focus on learning new tech without any emotional commitment.
- I know it's all for naught so I have no problem starting something and then not feeling 'guilty' about throwing it away afterwards.
- Its a serious mental challenge. I do it more for the personal competition (like golf) rather than competing against others
There are several other reasons, but those are the top for me. I never going in expecting to win (and I never do), so treating it like a weekend of nonsense probably helps.
They are a bit like LAN parties. Don't expect much more than that, and if that's what you want then it's all fine. However, for getting stuff done they are not a good format and his criticisms are valid.
+ for working on ongoing projects and known problems, rather than throwaway flashy toys
+ keep the "good" from regular hackathons
-----
- still overwhelmingly for a certain demographic (particularly non-inclusive as they are invitation-only)
- still likely to be not very healthy
I've been to one of these, and although I did win, I don't think it's particularly useful other than for entertainment, meeting people, etc. Which admittedly are good goals on their own. But anything other than young males will likely feel increasingly excluded in these events.
"still overwhelmingly for a certain demographic (particularly non-inclusive as they are invitation-only)"
Isn't the OpenBSD hackathons basically self-selected by being for people who contribute to the project.
"still likely to be not very healthy"
Given the trip reports from the last couple, they had a lot healthier (and funner) time than my last trip to Vegas. I seem to remember a hike as part of the events.
I think so, they look interesting but I haven't been to one so I cannot report. From the pics it seems to me that they're something like 90% male in their 20s-30s.
I realise now that my other post was not very clear. I went to a "hackathon" but not an OpenBSD one.
Yep well, it's the landscape of OSS and software development in general extending into the hackathon. Not something that should be policed IMO but many people would like a different landscape.
I agree. I think it really depends on expectations. If you go into the event with a desire to learn a new piece of tech or to try and experiment with a concept, then it's a great fun framework to build something with a well defined, externally set stopping point. And it's fun, esp with other smart people around.
However if you're trying to win, or worse forced to attend, then yeah that's a set up for a stressful, low value event.
I only was at one Hackathon, yet, and the article pretty much summarizes my thoughts. Instead of working on the Hackathon I did some pull requests to actual FOSS projects. One guy actually presented the thing he did for a FOSS project.
Aren't there hackathons from like Mozilla, Django, Rails communities who just meet to get some specific set of features, bugs or tests out of the way?
Man I'd love to join a hackathon where you are encouraged to work on your personal projects, and you get to share it with other attendees, and they get to share theirs with you, and hopefully someone finds your project interesting and then it's not a 1 man project anymore or vice versa.
Most (if not all) hackathons in my country are sponsored by companies to try out their new api's, gather potential hires under one roof, or for investors/business people trying to find developers/co-founders.
> Most (if not all) hackathons in my country are sponsored by companies to try out their new api's, gather potential hires under one roof, or for investors/business people trying to find developers/co-founders.
This accurately describes every hackathon I've been to in San Francisco. (Facebook, Heroku, RackSpace...)
>Using hackathons as a hiring tactic doesn't seem like a very smart idea, given how self-evidently discriminatory it is on the axes the OP describes.
Assuming that this is a problem for the companies in question. Personally, i agree with you: there ought to be Less Discrimination. I'm just wondering if a stereotypical SV outfit worries much about that.
You know you could run your own. They don't have to be big, all you need is place to stay, heat some food, an internet connection, some chairs and tables + some other room to put a bunch of blankets and sleeping bags.
It just occurred to me that Hackathons which stress on the caffeine-induced sleepless continuous-production aspect of programming are the opposite of what Rich Hickey termed "Hammock driven development" : http://data-sorcery.org/2010/12/29/hammock-driven-dev/
I guess the "furious activity IS productivity" approach of such hackathons is appropriate if you're building the next great website where the assembly of components is the challenge but they are probably not great for solving open-ended problems such as designing an algorithm or figuring out how to solve a puzzle (a business puzzle, a programming puzzle, a life puzzle).
The description of "Hammock-driven" development is very similar to how one has to function in academia, where the problems are hard and a lot of time thinking is necessary.
I also like to operate this way - the solutions created in such moments of brilliance just cannot be reproduced while in constant states of stress.
+1000 usually hackathon are the extension of a stereotype that a developer should make a fantastic app in 24h.
I can understand about designers and business models, but to project and develop a real app from scratch take a lot of time.. if you don't use pre existent code
haha. that's hilarious. i worked at a company that was trying to change its image from 'sweatshop' to 'we know tech' image (like a google or facebook). What better way did they think to accomplish this than to have 30 of their engineers work for 24 hours straight developing features they were too stupid to come up with on their own!...oh yeah, they had a ping pong table too...so its all good. And shitty pizza.
I'm 40 now, and i remember my manager was like "You going to the hackathon? I want you there." I'm like "are you kidding me? I'm not coding for 24 hours straight with no sleep...and then have to come into work the next day...damn dude, if you're going to have us do a 24 hour session, at least do it during the day (not a weekend)"
He really had no response for that.
the kicker was 1st place was a $50 starbucks gift card.
Was it a "big corp"? I work at one, and sometimes they do these kind of initiatives, to sound "hip" and all that jazz. They are optional but de facto mandatory, and almost everybody hates it. It seems that we can't take a day or two to rethink and reimplement something that's problematic, but we can (or have to) play "startup" for a day or two. It's as cringeworthy as it gets; you can easily tell that everyone wants to go home or even do real work. And the hypocrisy is mesmerising.
Somebody else here in HN (can't recall the thread) said this kind of initiative in megacorps were "mandatory fun". I can't put it better than that.
"They are optional but de facto mandatory, and almost everybody hates it."
I'm about the same age as OP and I have a lot of big corp experience and ALL "after hours team building activities" are thiny veiled punishment. ALL of them. The only people who don't see them as punishment (at least in public) are the primates winning the dominance ritual by forcing their slaves, err, I mean employees, to do stupid stuff. Or severe stockholm syndrome victims. What a bunch of jerks. If I don't hate them before the teambuilding, I hate them after it, thats for sure...
Non mandatory I don't mind although I'd never attend. Make it mandatory and you light the fire of hate.
As someone who works somewhere where these "team building exercises" take place, if the rest of the group is going to be drinking then there is 0% chance of me going. I don't mind people enjoying themselves around me, but I'm not interested in spending time with them as they drink more and more and consequently start acting stupider and more belligerent.
A lot of people enjoy getting shit-faced, but some people don't. I'm the latter. It's enough for me to truly feel sorry for any recovering alcoholics who mistakenly apply for a position on my team. Does all team-building have to include drugs (yes I'm including alcohol as a drug)?
Its all in the attendance policy. A former employer paid for everyone's first drink and an appetizer platter on Friday at 5:01 pm practically every week. Some drank a root beer and had some chips and salsa and left at about 5:15 pm, gotta pick up the kids or whatever, others reportedly were there all night.
The christmas party (OK, "holiday party") ran the same way, but much more generous.
Its a simple solution and its amazing how easy it is to ruin it. Its like crypto algos.
I drink socially myself, and love that type of work gathering where everyone gets ridiculous, but I respect your stance completely. I can understand why many don't like that situation. And I've thought about it much more since one of my childhood friends had to give up alcohol completely to avoid dying before he turned 30. So now when friday drinking is proposed I get very uneasy wondering who among the invitees may be nervously rubbing away at a one year token in their pocket as they smile and try to be team players.
I'm not saying I completely disagree, but we've been doing lots of things for long periods of time that we stopped doing for good reasons. I wouldn't be entirely surprised if drinking large amounts of alcohol becomes 'abnormal' in the not-too-distant future.
Don't get me wrong: in my current social circles drinking often and rather heavily is still the de facto social activity, and I enjoy it, albeit less, uh, vigorously than the past. Hangovers have become a bigger issue as I'm getting older. Anyways, some of these same groups also smoke heavily and I've noticed that particular behavior disappearing almost completely in some other groups I interact with. So perhaps alcohol will eventually 'phase out' in a similar way, at least in significant parts of society.
Getting 'hammered', even semi-regularly, is very unhealthy and it might not even foster stronger social ties as efficiently as other methods. It's just the easy default, for now, just like other things have been the easy default in the past.
I'm with you 100%. But how do you feel about something like a company picnic held on the weekend, if it was optional? Would you attend that? I usually try to go to those things, but I'm just curious how others feel.
I don't know, we've done hack weeks where I work and they were really fun and productive. The past few times, it has basically been "take a few days off of your normal tasks and work on a feature that you personally want to work on". Things that you might really like, but haven't been prioritized by the organization.
That actually sounds very cool, productive and fertile for product development - a prototype may be enough for the organization to "see" a new direction. Unfortunately, my experience hasn't been quite the same...
The worst pizza I ever had was at a Datageeks meetup in Munich (absolutely great meetup, by the way; generally over-booked). It was covered in some kind of microwaved, poached chicken, drowned in gloopy curry-sauce-from a tube. I felt so sick and ashamed after the third slice.
At least for me, pizza is one of those foods that I really like when it's good. Personally I tend toward brick oven thin-crust but, in any case, pretty fresh out of the oven, non-soggy, fresh and flavorful ingredients. Unfortunately most pizza, and especially most "event" pizza is none of those things and it's disgusting.
I would be very suspicious of finding a job offer at a hackathon. A company who wants workers that are willing to go without sleep to code are just looking for naive talent to exploit.
I've been to several hackathons, and I have a hard time relating to the article.
The hackathons I've been initiated by some open source communities (sometimes sponsored by a company, but that company wasn't involved in the topics), and were mostly not about the hacking, but about high-bandwidth communication between folks that usually only converse via bug trackers, IRC and email.
There are no prizes. Often no new projects come out, but existing ones are advanced.
I get the impression that there are two kinds of hackathons, the commercially motivated, and the community one.
IMHO it makes a lot of sense to distinguish those two when talking about hackathons.
I think a "non-interruption weekend" specifically designed around healthy food and sleep breaks is more fruitful in general.
The true value of a hackathon is twofold (imo)
- you don't have normal office interruptions and the like and can focus on one thing for an extended period
- you get to meet interesting people and exchange ideas
I think just focusing on that and mostly ignoring the "extremeness" of hackathons would be awesome. Instead of thinking "how can I code on for hours" a better focus would be "how can we generate a very productive and pleasant environment and still reap the benefits of hackathons".
For example, if it's a biggish place, childcare for parents would be something I'd think about before diving into how to get more coffee to the venue ;)
Did one a couple years ago - there were just 4 of us, and I was the only software guy. In ... about 30 hours (including my drive time to/from home a couple times) we had a decent-looking and moderately functional piece of software. It actually did quite a lot of stuff, but not what was originally talked about. But everyone was still impressed. Why? Mostly because I was able to focus on a few core things while saying no to most ideas/requests. I just kept saying "no", over and over, while working. Once the base was done, it was easier to say 'yes' to some ideas, or at least sketch them out.
We came in second place, out of about 20 teams that started the Friday night. I chalk about 80% of it up to the focus/constraints and ability to adhere to those.
If it's a biggish place, I think hackatons should take place during work hours. I knew a place where hackatons were 3 days in the week during work hours (technically you could stay after, but as it was a competition it felt partly like cheating).
One of the point to make it work was to have it focused on somewhat viable or useful ideas (you could submit stupid stuff as well, but not in categories with prizes), so the company gets it's share of benefits from the event without having to screw the participants.
In a way it's like condensing a few weeks of "20% time" into a few days, and not "come to work for free during the weekend, it will be so fun"
No sleep, constant work, crappy pay, crappy code and you get pizza. Is this your idea of startups? If so, get the hell out of that startup if you are a salaried employee!
On mothers not coming to hackathons: at Museomix[1] events we have at least 50% of women and many moms. Anecdotally, I clearly remember that at the very first Museomix in 2011 Nathalie, a participant, had a 3 months old daughter at home. Her dad was keeping care of her.
Museomix last 3 whole days, is probably beyond the traditional hackathon (in the sense that devs are only a part of the teams. 1/6th to be precise).
I guess the absence of moms is rather a question of general gender imbalance and culture of the event.
[1]http://museomix.org
I'm a mother of two young children and was a bit puzzled by the gender issue. Now we are past the breastfeeding stage, my husband is just as capable of looking after our children as me (and when my first was very tiny, I took him to a tech conference and the committee were very helpful and found me somewhere private to feed him). Doing these things at weekends is a hobby and having a family is going to get in the way of that, but don't see that affects women any more than men and it's a decision you make when you decide to have a family.
In general I always found the separation of life into life and the other stuff rather blurry, but hackathons have given me so much fun, excitement, great memories and occasional friendships that I definitely put them under the "life" label.
I agree with all the points, and yet at the same time I like these hackathon jam thingies.
I have a real life with real responsibilities and I live deep in the countryside to so I just don't get hackathons happening around me.
But I've started to make 'me' time to go meetups, game-programming jams, 'make' kind of things and that kind of stuff. And I love it, even if just a spectator and just for a few hours.
I've been to two "Major League" hackathons (CalHacks and YHack) and really enjoyed my experiences at both as a current undergrad studying CS. Not often do I get the chance to meet 1000+ people my age that are interested in exactly what I'm interested. It's a great time for meeting new people, and maintaining relationships after the weekend is done. I landed an internship this Summer in SF from building a hack and talking to engineers, so I'd say it's been an incredibly valuable experience.
I've attended a couple of local hackathons run by http://www.bathhacked.org/ Won a category and overall at the initial one (in a team) and won a category at the latter one (on my own).
The initial hack was 1 day and the latter 2 days. I'd guess I did a similar amount of work in both but felt far more relaxed over a 2 day event by keeping the hack objectives small. They are still mentally tiring experiences and you need time to recover.
Negotiating with my wife to create completely free weekends while juggling child care was also relatively hard.
I was then invited to a hack in Bristol a couple of weekends ago, but just could not make it because of family commitments. There was also an element of distance (only 12 miles away but right in the centre of the city) however was offered the ability to hack remotely and just come in to present. I just could not do it due to family commitments AND knowing this would be in effect working back to back weeks without a break.
I do agree that prizes were less important to me than the 'fun' of doing a hack. To win was just icing on the top.
The disappointment in a hackathon is that most of what you create is throwaway and the idea of after a hackathon, having workshops that develop and deliver a product is very very appealing.
OpenBSD was one of the first projects to start hackatons. I think they even invented the term. The idea behind them is great and does not have many of the downsides indicated: just get together and work on things that require more 'bandwidth' than e-mail or IRC or sub-projects where you can quickly progress when tackling it with a couple of other people. Besides that, it's a good occasion to meet fellow project members, have a barbecue, and talk all night.
However, most hackatons that I see in my mailbox are completely different. They are often:
- A way for a company to get some app programmed as quickly and cheaply as possible (you win a price and we get all rights).
- A way for companies to recruit. Both technical (which developers are good) and non-technical (who is willing to give up their life if we ask them to) datapoints can be gathered with ease.
> The idea behind them is great and does not have many of the downsides indicated: just get together and work on things that require more 'bandwidth' than e-mail or IRC or sub-projects where you can quickly progress when tackling it with a couple of other people. Besides that, it's a good occasion to meet fellow project members, have a barbecue, and talk all night.
That kind of meeting is more generally referred to as a sprint, isn't it?
Depends on which genesis of the word 'hackathon' you prefer.
OpenBSD and Sun both did 'hackathons' in June 1999, OpenBSD's more of the high-bandwidth collaboration type, Sun's more of the 'promote our APIs' sorts.
- A way for companies to recruit. Both technical (which developers are good) and non-technical (who is willing to give up their life if we ask them to) datapoints can be gathered with ease.
A company who recruits developers based on sub par products built in an unconventional way is one I would like to stay away from. Its screams "we are a sweatshop".
129 comments
[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 176 ms ] threadI Landed my last job by meeting someone at a hackathon. I found my current mid/long-term project doing another hackathon with the same person where we had the opportunity to develop a prototype and see that it worked.
I like hackathons because it's the only way for me to have two full days to actually _make_ something.
Personally, this cultural critique is far more interesting than any hackathon I've seen. I was even at a company which hilariously tried using hackathons to pay off technical debt, instead of simply scheduling it. (The damned Scrum Master was surprised I had no intention of staying during weekends; somehow he thought this plan would overjoy me, since I claimed we mismanaged technical debt.)
I am 20 years old and I share almost every single point as in the article. If not every single one honestly.. :P
I go to about one or two of them per year, am 36 years old, and here's what I DO like about 'generic' hackathons - that have no single sponsor:
There are several other reasons, but those are the top for me. I never going in expecting to win (and I never do), so treating it like a weekend of nonsense probably helps.They are a bit like LAN parties. Don't expect much more than that, and if that's what you want then it's all fine. However, for getting stuff done they are not a good format and his criticisms are valid.
OpenBSD hackathons ( http://www.openbsd.org/hackathons.html )tick a few of the boxes though:
+ not competitive
+ for working on ongoing projects and known problems, rather than throwaway flashy toys
+ keep the "good" from regular hackathons
-----
- still overwhelmingly for a certain demographic (particularly non-inclusive as they are invitation-only)
- still likely to be not very healthy
I've been to one of these, and although I did win, I don't think it's particularly useful other than for entertainment, meeting people, etc. Which admittedly are good goals on their own. But anything other than young males will likely feel increasingly excluded in these events.
Isn't the OpenBSD hackathons basically self-selected by being for people who contribute to the project.
"still likely to be not very healthy"
Given the trip reports from the last couple, they had a lot healthier (and funner) time than my last trip to Vegas. I seem to remember a hike as part of the events.
I realise now that my other post was not very clear. I went to a "hackathon" but not an OpenBSD one.
That's not a problem of a hackathon, its the basic demographic of contributions to open source.
However if you're trying to win, or worse forced to attend, then yeah that's a set up for a stressful, low value event.
Aren't there hackathons from like Mozilla, Django, Rails communities who just meet to get some specific set of features, bugs or tests out of the way?
Man I'd love to join a hackathon where you are encouraged to work on your personal projects, and you get to share it with other attendees, and they get to share theirs with you, and hopefully someone finds your project interesting and then it's not a 1 man project anymore or vice versa.
Most (if not all) hackathons in my country are sponsored by companies to try out their new api's, gather potential hires under one roof, or for investors/business people trying to find developers/co-founders.
This accurately describes every hackathon I've been to in San Francisco. (Facebook, Heroku, RackSpace...)
Using hackathons as a hiring tactic doesn't seem like a very smart idea, given how self-evidently discriminatory it is on the axes the OP describes.
Assuming that this is a problem for the companies in question. Personally, i agree with you: there ought to be Less Discrimination. I'm just wondering if a stereotypical SV outfit worries much about that.
I guess the "furious activity IS productivity" approach of such hackathons is appropriate if you're building the next great website where the assembly of components is the challenge but they are probably not great for solving open-ended problems such as designing an algorithm or figuring out how to solve a puzzle (a business puzzle, a programming puzzle, a life puzzle).
I also like to operate this way - the solutions created in such moments of brilliance just cannot be reproduced while in constant states of stress.
I'm 40 now, and i remember my manager was like "You going to the hackathon? I want you there." I'm like "are you kidding me? I'm not coding for 24 hours straight with no sleep...and then have to come into work the next day...damn dude, if you're going to have us do a 24 hour session, at least do it during the day (not a weekend)"
He really had no response for that.
the kicker was 1st place was a $50 starbucks gift card.
Uh, I would have asked what sort of overtime they were providing. I'm sort of assuming they weren't paying.
Somebody else here in HN (can't recall the thread) said this kind of initiative in megacorps were "mandatory fun". I can't put it better than that.
I'm about the same age as OP and I have a lot of big corp experience and ALL "after hours team building activities" are thiny veiled punishment. ALL of them. The only people who don't see them as punishment (at least in public) are the primates winning the dominance ritual by forcing their slaves, err, I mean employees, to do stupid stuff. Or severe stockholm syndrome victims. What a bunch of jerks. If I don't hate them before the teambuilding, I hate them after it, thats for sure...
Non mandatory I don't mind although I'd never attend. Make it mandatory and you light the fire of hate.
As someone who works somewhere where these "team building exercises" take place, if the rest of the group is going to be drinking then there is 0% chance of me going. I don't mind people enjoying themselves around me, but I'm not interested in spending time with them as they drink more and more and consequently start acting stupider and more belligerent.
A lot of people enjoy getting shit-faced, but some people don't. I'm the latter. It's enough for me to truly feel sorry for any recovering alcoholics who mistakenly apply for a position on my team. Does all team-building have to include drugs (yes I'm including alcohol as a drug)?
Its all in the attendance policy. A former employer paid for everyone's first drink and an appetizer platter on Friday at 5:01 pm practically every week. Some drank a root beer and had some chips and salsa and left at about 5:15 pm, gotta pick up the kids or whatever, others reportedly were there all night.
The christmas party (OK, "holiday party") ran the same way, but much more generous.
Its a simple solution and its amazing how easy it is to ruin it. Its like crypto algos.
Don't get me wrong: in my current social circles drinking often and rather heavily is still the de facto social activity, and I enjoy it, albeit less, uh, vigorously than the past. Hangovers have become a bigger issue as I'm getting older. Anyways, some of these same groups also smoke heavily and I've noticed that particular behavior disappearing almost completely in some other groups I interact with. So perhaps alcohol will eventually 'phase out' in a similar way, at least in significant parts of society.
Getting 'hammered', even semi-regularly, is very unhealthy and it might not even foster stronger social ties as efficiently as other methods. It's just the easy default, for now, just like other things have been the easy default in the past.
I regularly drink non-alcoholic beer at these things. It's okay for the first two hours, after which it is perfectly acceptable to leave.
If there is peer pressure to drink, then people get in trouble for being unprofessional.
I really hate that some top level managers try to come up with "lets be friends for a few hours" and forget about office politics.
I already have enough from those guys at the office. No need to expend my private life as well.
IMO it breeds bad habits of coding, planning and management...
Have personally loved it. Eating and sleeping well required. We even bring in healthier snacks than normal and force people out at midnight.
More here if interested: http://hackweek.khanacademy.org http://bjk5.com/post/56123354891/how-we-ran-the-second-khan-...
The hackathons I've been initiated by some open source communities (sometimes sponsored by a company, but that company wasn't involved in the topics), and were mostly not about the hacking, but about high-bandwidth communication between folks that usually only converse via bug trackers, IRC and email.
There are no prizes. Often no new projects come out, but existing ones are advanced.
I get the impression that there are two kinds of hackathons, the commercially motivated, and the community one.
IMHO it makes a lot of sense to distinguish those two when talking about hackathons.
The true value of a hackathon is twofold (imo)
- you don't have normal office interruptions and the like and can focus on one thing for an extended period
- you get to meet interesting people and exchange ideas
I think just focusing on that and mostly ignoring the "extremeness" of hackathons would be awesome. Instead of thinking "how can I code on for hours" a better focus would be "how can we generate a very productive and pleasant environment and still reap the benefits of hackathons".
For example, if it's a biggish place, childcare for parents would be something I'd think about before diving into how to get more coffee to the venue ;)
We came in second place, out of about 20 teams that started the Friday night. I chalk about 80% of it up to the focus/constraints and ability to adhere to those.
One of the point to make it work was to have it focused on somewhat viable or useful ideas (you could submit stupid stuff as well, but not in categories with prizes), so the company gets it's share of benefits from the event without having to screw the participants.
In a way it's like condensing a few weeks of "20% time" into a few days, and not "come to work for free during the weekend, it will be so fun"
meh
Museomix last 3 whole days, is probably beyond the traditional hackathon (in the sense that devs are only a part of the teams. 1/6th to be precise).
I guess the absence of moms is rather a question of general gender imbalance and culture of the event. [1]http://museomix.org
This is the strongest point.
I will contribute to your project, I will not spend the night drinking Mountain Dew and eating pizza.
In general I always found the separation of life into life and the other stuff rather blurry, but hackathons have given me so much fun, excitement, great memories and occasional friendships that I definitely put them under the "life" label.
I have a real life with real responsibilities and I live deep in the countryside to so I just don't get hackathons happening around me.
But I've started to make 'me' time to go meetups, game-programming jams, 'make' kind of things and that kind of stuff. And I love it, even if just a spectator and just for a few hours.
Along those lines I recently invited myself to look around a real rocket project (I'm an armchair enthusiast) and here's my pictures: http://williamedwardscoder.tumblr.com/post/102953980123/home...
I think that kind of project is like a years-long hackathon if you squint from a sufficiently high altitude.
The initial hack was 1 day and the latter 2 days. I'd guess I did a similar amount of work in both but felt far more relaxed over a 2 day event by keeping the hack objectives small. They are still mentally tiring experiences and you need time to recover.
Negotiating with my wife to create completely free weekends while juggling child care was also relatively hard.
I was then invited to a hack in Bristol a couple of weekends ago, but just could not make it because of family commitments. There was also an element of distance (only 12 miles away but right in the centre of the city) however was offered the ability to hack remotely and just come in to present. I just could not do it due to family commitments AND knowing this would be in effect working back to back weeks without a break.
I do agree that prizes were less important to me than the 'fun' of doing a hack. To win was just icing on the top.
The disappointment in a hackathon is that most of what you create is throwaway and the idea of after a hackathon, having workshops that develop and deliver a product is very very appealing.
However, most hackatons that I see in my mailbox are completely different. They are often:
- A way for a company to get some app programmed as quickly and cheaply as possible (you win a price and we get all rights).
- A way for companies to recruit. Both technical (which developers are good) and non-technical (who is willing to give up their life if we ask them to) datapoints can be gathered with ease.
That kind of meeting is more generally referred to as a sprint, isn't it?
OpenBSD and Sun both did 'hackathons' in June 1999, OpenBSD's more of the high-bandwidth collaboration type, Sun's more of the 'promote our APIs' sorts.
A company who recruits developers based on sub par products built in an unconventional way is one I would like to stay away from. Its screams "we are a sweatshop".