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Poll: What is HN made of?
Just curious about the makeup of the Hacker News population.
(This poll originally had 4 options: "I'm a developer", "I'm a business person", "I do both" and "I do neither". I've modified the poll due to feedback in the comments, so the "I do both" option seems a little out of place now.
At the time of the modification, there were 374 developers, 48 business people, 211 people who did both and 37 that did neither.)
- wwortiz 16y agoStudents and engineers really should be options.
- spicyj 16y agoI suppose engineers could be filed as "developers" because they develop stuff, but it would be nice if students was added.
- wwortiz 16y agoWell there are electrical, mechanical, civil, chem, etc. engineers and I'm sure some of those are represented here, not just software engineers.
- spicyj 16y agoMy point is that "developers" doesn't necessarily refer to software; it can refer to anyone who develops anything, including circuits, engines, bridges, and chemicals. But I agree, not the best choice of word.
- icey 16y agoI've added an option for "non-software related technical field". I was thinking that students could or should select whatever was closest to what they were going to school for.
- baddox 16y agoI have a feeling a "student" option would overwhelm all the others.
- wwortiz 16y agoThat actually would interest me incredibly if students were the majority.
- thompo 16y agowhat about designers?
- barnaby 16y agoIt's refreshing to take polls on community-driven technology news sites that don't always have Cowboy Neal as an option.
- CowboyNeal 16y agoHey!
- barnaby 16y agolol, awesome!
- gridspy 16y agoTo add: I'm a startup founder (tick)
- icey 16y agoWhat role do you fill in your startup?
- gridspy 16y ago- Co-founder - Software (High level firmware, all of the web presence / backend) - Marketing - Public Relations - Customer Support See the blog to gain some more insight into my life (all the posts are mine): http://blog.gridspy.co.nz/ http://blog.gridspy.co.nz/
- jrockway 16y agoI don't like the word "developer".
- thunk 16y agoGaaahhh! Visions of prancing, sweaty Ballmer!
- jrockway 16y agoSomewhat OT, but I actually liked that talk. You know Steve Jobs does the same thing at home when he is alone, except the chant is "Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, Jobs". And it's not the underarm region that gets stained.
- thunk 16y agoWhen he's not "unveiling products" or berating his minions, I always imagined him sitting full-lotus on a tatami mat, alone in an empty room, staring intently at the wall.
- philwelch 16y agoNot far off: http://brajeshwar.com/2007/steve-jobs-at-home-in-1982/ http://brajeshwar.com/2007/steve-jobs-at-home-in-1982/
- icey 16y agoI've changed it from "developers" to "programmers", just for you.
- pquerna 16y agopeople always forget the sysadmins/operations crew.
- sliverstorm 16y agoThey must be blessed by excellent sysadmins to have forgotten them
- Natsu 16y agoOne of the bad things about that is that you can automate yourself out of a job (or have your duties expanded to include things that are pretty unreasonable). Smart people should realize that it's a good thing if you're not constantly fighting fires or that you've replaced a whole lot of manual BS with a small script or two. But there seem to be a lot fewer smart people around than I would like. I read this thing on Bruce Schneier's blog and wondered how I would know if we were being sabotaged or not: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/06/world_war_ii_sa.html?nc=39 http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/06/world_war_ii_s... I guess it's like they say: sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.
- JMiao 16y agoexplains all those "ninja" sysadmin/ops job postings.
- icey 16y agoA true oversight on my part, I apologize. I've added operations as an option.
- tiki12revolt 16y agolurker? (i.e. graduate student or other?)
- spicyj 16y agoI came to this thread to say Arc, but I see that you're talking about the real people who make up this site. As if!
- zackattack 16y agoI keep it real.
- zackattack 16y agoI try to keep it real.
- bootload 16y ago"... I came to this thread to say Arc ..." Same here. A quirk of cognitive recognition - literalism and thinking of objects before people.
- kimquy 16y agoI'm a developer
- mixmax 16y agoIt's worth remembering that since HN is (unsurprisingly) largely made up of developers when you read through all of the great comments and linked articles there's bound to be a bias towards solving problems with technology even though it's not always the best approach. Remember that a lot of business transactions are done in the real world based on connections, phone calls and socialising.
- derefr 16y agoBut remember also that there's a difference in meaning between "best approach" and "approach that doesn't make anyone angry due to having been made irrelevant/replaced by a small shell script." Middle-men that add no value should be routed around, not greased, no matter how unhappy that makes the middle-men.
- mixmax 16y agoAbsolutely. It's all about efficiency. But sometimes the most efficient way to get a customer to buy your product is to call him and tell him how great your stuff is, and sometimes the best way to market your product is to go to tradeshows and meetups to advertise. Most people trust a real person more than they trust technology. The right tool for the right job.
- aufreak3 16y agoRight. Sometimes.
- jayruy 16y agoRidiculously techno-centric comment. You cannot replace trust with a shell script. IT has the profound ability to tell us, with amazing detail, the state of the world today. But business planning is done based on the future, and that requires trust. Even if you are "building the future" in a startup: if you've taken funding or are drawing salary, you've convinced someone about a possible future state of the world, and that requires trust.
- 16y ago
- Dobbs 16y agoProfessionally a Sysadmin, in my spare time a growing developer.
- quizbiz 16y agoSince polls allow multiple votes, would be great if tje following could be added: I'm a Student I'm a Founder I'm an Investor I'm a designer
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- c23gooey 16y agowhen i saw the title for this thread, i thought: HN is made of awesome!
- fara 16y agoI thought you might be asking the technology used for HN site. My guess would be Lisp. Does anybody know?
- timf 16y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_%28programming_language%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_%28programming_language%29
- CapitalistCartr 16y agoI program and manage CNC machines. Not a common area. I suspect lots of people here fit into uncommon fields.
- joe_bleau 16y agoI've done some of that. Mostly Fanuc controls.
- tszming 16y agono hacker?
- timf 16y agoThe "do both business and technical work" option doesn't seem to capture the essence of what many are up to here, the "full time technical work but learning about starting small businesses and actively building something on the side" option. But OK, that's what I picked.
- jff 16y agoWhere's the "I'm a researcher"? Or, as stated elsewhere, engineer? I'm both, but an engineer (computer engineer) first of course. If you stripped my work down to the most insultingly basic level, then I'm a programmer.
- jim-greer 16y agoIt's tough to cover every case, and if you're insulted by being called a programmer, this might not be the site for you.
- ericd 16y agoResearchers, even researchers in some CS fields, frequently only do a little programming - the thinking behind it is often much harder than the actual implementation they do to test something. So imagine being identified with a part of your job that is actually only an inconsequential sliver of it.
- tensor 16y agoComputer scientists are often mathematicians more than anything else. It is similar to calling a laboratory scientist a "lab technician."
- muppetman 16y agoI'm a network architect, working for an ISP. I design and architect networks for our Internet customers and for our private customers as well. I read Hacker News because I find it really interesting. Not living in the US, the whole startup thing is something I still, frankly, don't quite understand. It's a whole other world that I find very interesting in almost a voyeuristic way. I don't consider myself much of a Hacker. I install vim on my Windows XP machine at work to edit Router config's and the like, but I don't need to use any of its power. I suspect there's quite a few people here like me that read the site and the comments, but never really post because I can't offer anything decent to the conversations.
- scorpioxy 16y agoJust want to add that being a hacker has less to do with the tools you choose to use and more to do with how you approach problems. Using Windows is not a mark of shame or incompetence. Using Windows because you can't comprehend anything but point-and-click interfaces probably is. In my opinion at least...
- jsz0 16y agoI also work at an ISP. I feel like building a big complex router configuration can classify as hacking. You're creating something that didn't exist before you took the router out of the box. Maybe you're limited to the device's capabilities and features but there's still plenty of room for creativity and skill in how you design and implement solutions.
- muppetman 16y agoGood point. I guess by hacker I meant coder/programmer. Most of the articles here refer to programming or other similar complex problems. Whilst BGP next-hops, OSPF neighbours and flapping spanning-tree can be a pain in the arse to debug, I just don't quite consider it on the same level as some of the stuff I read here. Maybe it's just because I don't understand it, so it seems more complex than it really is? I am proud of my work and I love my job, so I'm happy in that regard!
- teach 16y agoI'm an educator; specifically a high-school teacher teaching plain old "Computer Science I". But Hacker News has helped me (and, in turn, my students) to be more self-aware, and encouraged me to work harder and take more risks than I'm naturally inclined to. Edit: Oh, and I write small software tools to improve my teaching/grading workflow, but I did that even before Slashdot got started.
- amanfredi 16y agoA resource, according to some of the managers.
- Naga 16y agoI'm a history undergrad. I had to make a decision between going into compsci, or history, and I think I should right. I'm a history student by day, hacker by night.
- minalecs 16y agoI do Both - programmer first, and became founder business second
- sabat 16y agoI'm in operations and I'm a programmer.
- pramit 16y agoHN is also made up of people with modest tech experience who want to learn from a community of learned and experienced individuals so that they can manage their startups better. Like me.
- mapleoin 16y agorabbits and lemonade?
- po 16y agoI clicked on here expecting "snips and snails and puppy-dog tails" as a poll option.
- ilcesco 16y agoIn daylight, consultant/business analyst at major IT company, during the night, I put togheter jquery, css, rails, perl scripting, dedicated servers and obscure new stuff to build my contribution of innovation to the human society.
- mahmud 16y agoI am a programmer, businessman, designer, SEO, writer, salesman, account manager, marketer, recruiter, tech-support, sysadmin, HR, accountant and telemarketer. And as soon as I can afford, I will hire a competent person to for each single task.
- fukka 16y agoWTF what's going on here?!