Hackathons are Dumb

I want to like Hackathons, but having a competition where you code for 24 hours is dumb.

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#benawad

[rtorcato]

How do we steal a bunch of ideas from a bunch of junior programmers? Hackathon!

[TheYaBoyKevin]

Went to a hackathon my first semester of CS and all I knew was basic python lol. Stayed there for 2 hours, ate some free food, did a little bit of hw, got some free stickers and left.

[Wayne_Robinson]

As a much older developer who has pulled more than a few all-nighters in my career when facing critical deadlines I can say that it's not healthy and the need to do it reflects poor planning on a work project. Sleep, regular breaks with physical activity, and time away from a near-field visual focus is essential to feeling and being healthy so a hackathon sounds like the worst phase of a poorly-planned work project and best to avoid at all cost. Find a good open-source project to contribute to and let people review your pull requests which can be done from the comfort, I mean social distance, of your own home. You can always stack cups in your dining area if that seems like a good diversion.

[rednassie]

"sleep is steroids for programmers"
I once was like "Fuck this utter bullshit" on an algorithm and it didn't work. I pulled an allnighter to try to fix it, but I couldn't. My dad told me to get some rest after 8 hours trying to fix it, breaking other pieces of code and a lot of bad stuff. I got only 3 hours of sleep, but I still remember thinking "Oh my god, it's this, _how did I not see this???_ ", and fixed the bug in under 15 minutes.

[tonyyasi]

Dude, this the most random thing that has happened to me, the picture in 3:24 is my school's hackathon, lol.

I was there and I organized it, this is actually crazy.

Cheers from Mexico!

[BrewskaySA]

"Computer Science students do not have the best Hygiene." I am just gonna leave this

[heyiamtito]

Also, even if you win, after you divide the prize by the number of members in the group and the number of hours you worked, you might still question what are you doing with your life

[ska]

The only good commit message is “add files via upload”

[minhazrahman]

"I just wasted 24 hours of my life for nothing."

Thats me everyday in a nutshell.

[smakosh]

"And for that reason I'm out" - Ben Awad decided not to invest, but that didn't stop hackathons from giving up

[deeplearningexplained]

I've always framed Hackathons as a PowerPoint competition. Its just crazy to me to think that in 1 or 2 days the organizer would think that you can understand the business problem accurately and design a full-blown solution. Even if you are a team of 5 incredible programmer it makes no sense.
I find the best team combination is :
1) someone who can pitch well (he will practice this for the full length of the hackathon)
2) someone who can design the presentation to be stunning and memorable
3) a technical person who understand what **would be** needed to implement the solution (here is where he fake it as much as possible)
4) someone who intensively research the judges taste and the competition requirement and make sure that the solution is as aligned as possible.

[mariokrstevski]

That's basically me at hackathons. The minute I enter I say "I've already won" because the catering is my price xD.

[prthmatic]

"stacking cups is fun when you are sleep deprived"

- Ben Awad

[SKREFI]

Yeah, the best part is where you are there with your friends (a group of 4-5), all teens or around 20 (that was my case, all of us, the first semester of uni) trying to make some goddam app work, while Bob And Steve at 40s+ make amazon clone...

[protectedmethod]

I just dislike that hackathons are 99% about who has the best 5 minute presentation/video and not about who made the best project.

[MrDgf]

The “lack of hygiene” photo you used was taken at my University lmao

[deepakmittal]

"And for that reason, I'm out"

[courier-new]

"and if you're lucky they'll give out free bubble tea" <- literally my primary motivation to attend hackathons!

[mattlm]

I can barely code for more than 2 hours at a time before going mentally insane.

[TheScott]

Solid final advice. Would they even let you show up at the start, grab all the cool stuff, and then dip before teams are formed? :D