I build developer tools, and so hackathons are a useful way to evaluate various assumptions about the toolchain: http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/msgflo-noflo-in-hacka

I build developer tools, and so hackathons are a useful way to evaluate various assumptions about the toolchain: http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/msgflo-noflo-in-hackathons/ http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/msgflo-noflo-in-hackathons/ That said, I hate the "build a fake startup during a weekend" concept that pretty much all hackathons here in Berlin follow. And since the judges are typically 100% non-technical, the best powerpoints win, without consideration of what actually got done.