12 ms·

16 year old app developer: Plagiarist or Prodigy?

243 points by Dawny33 9y ago

j-pb 9y ago
This is advertisement. They use her story to promote the app. Of course she didn't write the thing, no "child prodigy" that "released an app that will change the world" in the last 10 years of apps, did. It's either a political diversity narrative or emotional advertisement for a product. But yeah, let's all waste our time holding 16 old kids "accountable" for their "unethical" behaviour, like big boy adults do, that'll teach them how to grow up!
- fiatjaf 9y ago
  So you're ok with they getting away with the all lies, but if someone writes something debunking them, you criticize the guy?
- radoslawc 9y ago
  Right, let's not hold accountable 16 y old kids that do school shootings, those were only hormones.
- FRex 9y ago
  Yes. "If you manage to get social media on your side by endearing them then you can lie and steal" is the better lesson to teach a 16 year old. A 16 year old can waste his or her life by this age if he or she does really badly in school or smokes weed and gets caught. I can forgive teens for a lot of silly things like lying, cheating, petty crime, etc. but not doubling down when caught and creating a social media hatemob for someone questioning her. Also - she is not a kid. There are at least few countries in which a 16 year old can have sex, drive, drink alcohol, join military academy, etc. and at 17 or 18 the list of countries grows to hundreds of entries. And she is a "prodigy", not any ordinary kid and she defended herself very well (and evidently successfully considering the thread calling her out on reddit got outright removed, not just downvoted) on social media and even called the person claiming she is lying a "jobless disturbed harasser and bully". She has attended MIT Launch, was intern at Sales force. Along with writing that app she also localized this app to 10 languages (I'm not sure if she did it herself via Google Translate, the way she writes about it is not clear), optimized it for iPhone X, prepared a full release, all within these 2 months while coming across new techniques and concepts and learning them on the fly. This is all in her medium.com post and if she can do all of that she can get held to the same standard as an adult. And if it's someone just using her persona and doing all this then there is even a bigger problem, bordering on personality theft and fraud.
  - Faaak 9y ago
    Being a kid is not a boolean value. You don't go from "being a kid" to "not being a kid". It's gradual. Some people are still kids at 19, others are quite mature at 17. Who knows, maybe her parents are pushing her a lot and she doesn't know how to react. We should give people the benefit of the doubt when we don't know the full story. She'll be forgiven in 2 months anyways..
    - FRex 9y ago
      > Being a kid is not a boolean value. You don't go from "being a kid" to "not being a kid". It's gradual. Some people are still kids at 19, others are quite mature at 17. It actually is boolean for many laws but that's beside the point. Whatever a threshold is a person who makes apps so quickly, calls herself an entrepreneur and a programmer, all while highlighting her young age (ostensibly to show that she is more mature or skilled than others that age) has crossed it. > Who knows, maybe her parents are pushing her a lot and she doesn't know how to react. Then just like with "a team" it's a big issue if her parents pushed her to do it all or did it for her and should not be swept under the rug because it's a woman in tech or a teen. > We should give people the benefit of the doubt when we don't know the full story. Too bad the author of this post doesn't get that. Instead they got called names, accused of bullying and harassment of a teen, accused of driving women out of tech, flagged (here too for a while apparently), and pretty much told to fuck off and die. It's only more ironic that the author is a woman too (which in an ideal world should not matter in the dispute but in USA/tech industry it seems to, although I've seen plenty of woman vs. woman disputes online where one woman will claim the other who criticizes her has "internalized sexism"). > She'll be forgiven in 2 months anyways.. Well yes. No one is going to crucify her for this but plagiarism and being put on a pedestal for things you didn't do are (in theory, apparently it is if you are a woman judging by some of the comments here[0]) not acceptable and can't be revealed and then just defended (not even disputed) by tons of people because the perpetrator is a woman or teen and thus beyond criticism or fair attribution of work. [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16307994 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16307994
  - zolthrowaway 9y ago
    >A 16 year old can waste his or her life by this age if he or she does really badly in school or smokes weed and gets caught. I agree with the vast majority of your post, but I would say this part isn't super fair. Maybe I'm reading too much into this part, but outside of exceptional cases, we do give minors the chance to recover. I know people who had high school GPAs in the low 2s, that went to community college for 2 years, transferred to a solid university, and have a good career. At least where I live, your records are sealed at 18 unless you have been tried as an adult (which is exceedingly rare). You can definitely recover from an offense, but it is going to make things harder. Yes, a 16 year old doing some (alleged) unethical behavior should face some consequences, but no 16 year old should have their life ruined. Intelligence and maturity are not coupled.
jjevanoorschot 9y ago
"Such kind of people give Women in Code a really, really bad name, because sweetie, it takes tonnes of hardwork, cutting through competition, persistent dealing with sexism and lot of patience to make place for yourself in this male-dominant coveted industry." It's quite ironic that in a sentence about sexism and a male-dominated industry, the author addresses the developer by 'sweetie'.
- psergeant 9y ago
  Do you believe sweetie is a gendered word?
  - SmellyGeekBoy 9y ago
    It seems to be one of those loaded words that's often used by a certain type of man to put women "in their place".
    - mosselman 9y ago
      So could be the word 'Geek', only to put smart people in their place, that didn't stop you from using it as a badge of honor in your nickname. So maybe you shouldn't blanket-accuse everyone of being a misogynist based on some hypothetical male character that you made up to fit some preconceived narrative of sexism, because that is in fact the true sexism here. There are plenty of people who use the word 'sweetie' endearingly, there is nothing wrong with that.
    - rep_movsd 9y ago
      You just cant handle the fact that a genuine really professional girl who is a coder cant be snarky when calling out a pleb of a teenaged liar? If anything its very civil language towards a spoilt brat whose parents should be ashamed to have raised a liar.
    - kiriakasis 9y ago
      i believe today "sweetie" is mostly used by women
    - 9y ago
staticelf 9y ago
It's a 16 year old girl that programmed an app, of course you're going to have a shitstorm when you deconstruct the truth of the matter. Good post though, I love people who exposes frauds.
jacknews 9y ago
>> he “allowed her” to call the app hers, given certain “circumstances”. Is this the actual quote? It sounds as though we're meant to read more into it. The real author could well be a parent, but I guess we're meant to read that it's a suitor.
- theparanoid 9y ago
  The "real" author was a contractor--it's common to see app development contracted out on UpWork. I wouldn't read much into the wording since he's not a native English speaker.
sus_007 9y ago
Wow, I was always a bit skeptic about this from the beginning. Already after reading her medium article I was convinced there is something fishy going on. Here I was putting together a simple web app after months of cramming textbooks & video tutorial series (as a 19 years old) & there she was winning acclaim for her fake commitment.
TomK32 9y ago
Young women interested in programming rare enough, let her get some help, let her have all the praise, that's okay. In years to come she'll hopefully stick to the field and that's what is important. Not that she wrote 100% of her app. What we must never forget, writing the code is just the small part, marketing and selling software is the bigger challenge. She's obviously good at that and will prevail no matter what the nit-pickers say.
- kbart 9y ago
  No, it's not ok, because as the original author highlights, such frauds diminish genuinely working women in tech (as is the author). For the same reason we don't give medals to the sportsmen that are caught cheating.
  - Froyoh 9y ago
    Yes, it is okay.
- radoslawc 9y ago
  How do we help those that doesn't do frauds then?
  - yorwba 9y ago
    Offer to review their code. Talented beginners tend to be unaware of the best/standard way to do things and are likely to produce code that works but is somehow strange. Point out how to do it differently when that happens, and make sure to explain the reasoning so they can avoid similar mistakes in the future. But don't give just negative feedback; also tell them when they have done particularly well, so they don't get discouraged. And sometimes just showing interest in what they are doing can be enough.
- rep_movsd 9y ago
  "What we must never forget, writing the code is just the small part, marketing and selling software is the bigger challenge. She's obviously good at that and will prevail no matter what the nit-pickers say" This is why we have shit software ecosystems - Take Microsoft as the biggest example of "its more important to sell stuff than get it right"
tomaskafka 9y ago
> But after reading her blogpost, her stackoverflow/github history in an attempt to understand her struggles as a self-taught programmer; I figured that there was no struggle at all! Self taught programmers are full of numerous questions, but she didn’t seem to have any! Neither is there any progression of all the tasks she did. This is just one of possible approaches. For example, I actively ask very rarely, the most you could find on SO would be upvotes to answers. With this approach, the author would probably conclude I didn't write my weather watchfaces myself, as there are almost no public traces of me doing so. And yet. https://apps.garmin.com/en-US/apps/2de2ee03-0f81-4668-b885-120def9f07c4 https://apps.garmin.com/en-US/apps/2de2ee03-0f81-4668-b885-1... https://apps.getpebble.com/en_US/application/56aeaa675fc3f1c4c700005b https://apps.getpebble.com/en_US/application/56aeaa675fc3f1c...
- watwut 9y ago
  This one jumped on me too. My history would quite the same and especially when I was younger. I would never ask under anything traceable back to me publicly. And I was always searching much more then actively asking, I asked online twice my whole life and got maybe one answer total. I would also keep stuff on my own disk until I thought it is progressed enough etc. I was too insecure to show progress, because progress contains more mistakes and I dont like looking dumb. It also makes it easier to tear you down if someone decides to. I mean, I have no idea what the conditions of that competition were and how much alone you was supposed to do it. I have no idea how much mentoring counts as too much and how much is fine. Nor whether this crosses the line. Just that, the above suspicion is dumb.
  - LoSboccacc 9y ago
    "when I was younger" is a risky point of view: i.e. when I was younger I wrote a cycling manager game that was really a very very modded gorilla.bas, and there was no internet to use, only the inline help and that was it. that mindset of figuring things out by incremental change and debugging thoroughly sticks, and even if now I can say I'm used to stack overflow and the like I do see programmer that grew up in a fully connected social world do rely a lot more on the network to find answers than me.
076ae80a-3c97-4 9y ago
She may not be good at developing apps but she is good a lying... > I’m not sure who is the “someone else” here. The app is published from Ravinder Singh Arora’s (my Dad) account. I can’t sign up for an Apple Developer account because I’m <18. And I created the app on my own :) https://medium.com/@harshitaisanerd/im-not-sure-who-is-the-someone-else-here-e03f1e13fa40 https://medium.com/@harshitaisanerd/im-not-sure-who-is-the-s...
- cruisemaniac 9y ago
  This seems to be the part that upset a lot of people including the OP.
MarkCole 9y ago
This reads a lot like an attack. Yes its clear they did not program their app 100% themselves. I fail to see how it's such a big deal. Especially one that requires posts on multiple platforms targeting her. The other developers seem happy for her to take the credit, presumably as its good for marketing. Who is this really hurting?
- gourou 9y ago
  > we don’t see him bagging MIT scholarships, or all the accolades the girl is receiving for her app I guess she's worried that she'll get exposed further down the line and it would be bad for women who code in general
- FRex 9y ago
  When someone very prominently says they made an app, someone else says they didn't and the first person responds with calling them jobless, disturbed and a harasser then the gloves are off. And it hardly reads like an attack to me anyway, there are no insults, no ill wishes to her career or life, it's just very firm.
  - MarkCole 9y ago
    > the first person responds with calling them jobless, disturbed and a harasser then the gloves are off Well that reaction seems to have come after they were harrassed, called a dumb kid, and a lying piece of shit[1]. This is a 16 year old, they're going to make mistakes. This level of hate for something very minor is really out of proportion. They did after all contribute at least partly towards the app, so it's more of an exaggeration than an all out lie. [1] https://imgur.com/a/jFbQR https://imgur.com/a/jFbQR
- yorwba 9y ago
  It appears that the author originally reached out to her because she wanted to offer mentorship. Then she realized that the code wasn't the work of someone who'd need a mentor, but an experienced developer who'd done the actual coding. And the girl had the gall to downplay the level of "help" she received. Instead of the talented and hard-working individual she expected, the author found someone who'd take credit for the work of others to gain internet fame. I don't think this article is the best reaction to that (hurling insults usually doesn't help anyone), but I can understand how she'd get pissed about that kind of behavior.
unvs 9y ago
> but coding =! app development That's a pretty funny typo from someone defending themselves against accusations of not knowing how to program.
ealexhudson 9y ago
I have to say, I found the "story" very leading. A lot of inconclusive evidence labelled a lot stronger than it deserves, especially the "confession". The reality of a lot of app development now is that you can go a long way by not doing very much. Ok, so the git graph shows another developer committed many more lines: since when have we, as an industry, taken KLOC as a serious measure of anything?? Those lines of code could well be XML UI structures or a bunch of config spat out from an IDE. Is she an amazing developer? No, she admits as much - she claims 10k lines of code, a bunch of which may have been StackOverflow'd, and she doesn't claim experience. She says she has trouble with Python. Such a big deal over such a minor thing.
- rep_movsd 9y ago
  I actually have the entire source code so I have enough evidence. Obviously I can't reveal it since it would be illegal. But she gave it to me of her own free will, and if you think 10000 lines can be SO'd then you live in a bubble
  - simias 9y ago
    If you want us to believe you without giving any proof you'll have to give us more evidence. Why did she give you the (incriminating) source? Why can't you reveal it? What in said source code convinces you she didn't write it?
    - whatshisface 9y ago
      Presumably, you could perform many of the decompiling steps that the author performed. A great deal of the parent article seems reproduceable.
    - rep_movsd 9y ago
      You can see in the conversation screenshot that she uploaded code on Google drive at my request - my only intention was to review the code. Yes she trusted me that much - in fact there are a lot of peoples code I have reviewed and fixed. The code is too complicated for a beginner to have written. There are generator expressions, lambdas and what not in there. I could go ahead and post the previous conversations where I was struggling to get basic programming concepts into her head, but shes already gone rabid in trying to discredit me. More material from my side will make her react even more extremely. My biggest question and open challenge to her is this: If she wrote all of it - 1) Show us the git log 2) If she insists aviral corrected and merged the code himself, show us the original fragments of code she sent, or show us the mails containing fragments of code if she emailed it to him. If aviral was really a mentor, why would he use this crude method of collaboration, he'd explain how to use git and github to her to raise pull requests, commit code and so on. Even the most pleb developer uses github and manages to commit code and so forth to it in a few days. Just look at the number of git repos with hello world like code in them. I'm sure she'll come up with some excuse why the above is impossible like "we deleted intermediate stuff and mails", or "I dont know how to use git", or whatever hamstering. I saw bullshit I called it. The burden of proof is on her. I have much more to lose by lying than she does. I have a life, a career and people will surely take the word of a teenage girl over a man in his 30s. She could instantly destroy all my credibility and reputation by showing proof. In the unlikely event that she can provide proof that can convince without doubt, then I'll eat my words. If she can't then its her word against mine - I have nothing to lose or gain by her rise or fall, I don't even own Macs, iPhones or do mobile development. I have no motivation to lie. I've built apps all my life. She has every motivation to - this is her ticket to getting into the USA. Also what about the guy who was told directly by aviral that aviral developed the app for a small sum of money under an NDA? Aviral has even tweeted something to the effect of "I lost respect for this guy who made a private conversation public". That's damning evidence.
TorKlingberg 9y ago
It's not plagiarism, it's a team putting the 16-year-old in front for the media attention. The crypto currency space is full of dodgy stuff, so not surprising. The author of this post seem to have it out for the girl personally, which is unnecessary.
- FRex 9y ago
  She personally claims to have written it all on her own, in the press release she also says she was intern at Sales force in Bangalore, attended MIT Launch and her profile says she is a "16 year old programmer and entrepreneur" along with a link to "my app". She also called the person disputing that a jobless disturbed bully, harasser and troll and due to internet "siding with her" the author was met with abuse for "harassing a kid" and insults despite the proof they provided about app possibly being a team work or work of someone else. And if all her social media posts are "a team" then this is even more unethical.
  - TorKlingberg 9y ago
    Yes, that's what the current social media climate is like unfortunately. An internet mob harassing someone seems to be the default answer to everything, and each person participating thinks they are fighting for justice or something. I just don't think HN piling on is going to help.
    - jtriangle 9y ago
      So you're saying that we should just let people lie and get away with it? Because right now she's getting away with it.
- dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago
  It looks you're right. She was writing something, then the other guy was reviewing and correcting it, at least this is what she claims: https://imgur.com/0ihzIzy https://imgur.com/0ihzIzy
cruisemaniac 9y ago
I'm concerned with the parenting thats at play here! "Giving credit where due" is something so simple yet hugely absent in this incident!
Shinchy 9y ago
I could understand if the App did something amazing, but it's just a basic Crypto tracking app - there are thousands of these already on the App Store. I'm sure she did work on it to some extent, it's nothing spectacular. Looks like a fairly basic 'follow the tutorial' first App, but maybe that's just me.
- sus_007 9y ago
  It's not about the complexity of the app that bothers me, it's the praise she is getting from people for falsely claiming that she solely developed the app with negligible help from other devs which turns out to be completely untrue.
rep_movsd 9y ago
Why is this flagged? How can we request unflagging? Is it all about censorship of harsh truths?
- sarreph 9y ago
  I second this. Feels like something fishy is going on, given all the author’s prior references of being flagged on other platforms.
- kilotaras 9y ago
  > How can we request unflagging? There's a "vouch" button once you have enough karma.
- grzm 9y ago
  Members may flag submissions due to the resulting discussion on HN as much as the submission itself: the sets of topics that are interesting and topics that can be constructively discusses on HN are not identical. Both are important to keep HN interesting. FWIW, it's not flagged at the time I'm writing this comment.
  - YouAreGreat 9y ago
    Quality of HN commentary is down and the flagging epidemic is part of it. The problem is sinking and killing discussions that already got going. A minority of selfish users gets to demolish collaborative work that other users already invested in. The incentives are for lower effort from commenters. A downward spiral.
- DoreenMichele 9y ago
  Flagging is something users do on HN, not mods. If you have enough karma, you can vouch for flagged items. You can also email the mods if you think it merits mod intervention. I have done so a few times to say stuff like "It is a good article with a bad title. I think users are flagging in reaction to the title without reading it." In such cases, they sometimes turn off flags and retitle the piece. Large group dynamics are inevitably messy and complicated. It doesn't really help to get up in arms about that fact.
dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago
Why is this story flagged? It somehow proves the author's point.
- pjc50 9y ago
  It's difficult-to-verify flamebait, and if it's not true then it's harassing a kid. It also reminds me of the Naomi Wu fiasco, where people thought that a woman couldn't possibly be doing all the things she said she did. And ultimately apologised.
- aiCeivi9 9y ago
  It feels a bit like witch hunting and it is probably the reason it got removed from reddit. Anyway "X got removed so X is true" is a slippery slope if not outright false.
  - dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago
    It was enough to answer just like she did here: https://imgur.com/0ihzIzy https://imgur.com/0ihzIzy Personally I believe her explanations, but then it doesn't look like she was really writing everything on her own.
zuzuleinen 9y ago
Why is this flagged?
- YouAreGreat 9y ago
  Is flagging on HN distinguishable from overpowered downvote?
mattdeboard 9y ago
This is just peak hacker news right here
not_okay 9y ago
The author of the article comes across poorly here - this is nothing more than bullying and harassment of the app developer, just because they didn't meet the exacting standards of this critic. So the app developer had some mentorship, and probably copied and pasted a handful of code snippets she didn't have a deep understanding of. So what? That doesn't justify this completely over the top reaction.
arno_app 9y ago
I‘m sorry but the author is indeed a bully. I get the point why it may be unethical to copy and claim it’s someone’s own work but afaik the “real” coders were alright with this. The author tries with all effort to proof that this kid can’t Code by saying how experienced he is and that he was also smart when he was her age. For me this sounds like being very jealous and frustrated.
- geodel 9y ago
  The author is women. And this just seems to be case where family 'helps' kid to chart their independent path. It is pretty common and I have known many people who would hire some contractors to write some mobile apps that can be used to garnish resume for college admissions etc. People have been doing it forever but with help of social media they can generate lot of support and sympathy also if they fit in right slot of identity politics.
  - Froyoh 9y ago
    So what the author is a woman?
throwaway2016a 9y ago
I have a related question. Since when is a 16 year old who makes an app a prodigy? Even if she did write it all by herself? I was getting paid to make back office software for local businesses at 13 in 1998 with absolutely no help from anyone and no one called me a prodigy. I'm sure tons of NH people have similar stories. I seem to remember a survey at one point that the average person on HN who actually codes started coding at around 12. Perhaps we should be teaching young people that coding is an obtainable goal that if you put your mind to it and work hard you can do? Not something you need to be a "prodigy" to do.
- dudul 9y ago
  I would say that it depends on the maturity of the app. If it's 2 or 3 screens with a couple buttons yeah, nothing extraordinary. If it can handle a massive load and do actual complicated calculation then it's more impressive. I was also making websites for business at the beginning of the Internet when I was a teen. But back then anybody who could understand HTML was seen as a freaking wizard :) But I also recognize that the complexity of what I was building was nowhere near what I do today for example.
- EnderMB 9y ago
  It's easy enough to write code when you're young, but to write something that is being actively used is impressive. With that being said, I do find the worship of young people in tech a bit worrying. Over the years I've worked with a handful of talented developers that have started from a very young age, and over the years they become very good at a relatively young age. By the time they reach 20, they're senior-level developers. That's all well and good, but these youngsters have been praised for years. Once they reach their twenties, they go from being young to being an adult, like everyone else. All of a sudden, the slack they were given to build their career up is gone, and many of them struggle from here onwards. It can be a mixture of being treated differently, or from essentially being jaded about dedicating that many years of their youth to a skill to be building the same old CRUD shit year after year.
  - cableshaft 9y ago
k__ 9y ago
I once read that a big problem in the industry are already established women. There seems to be the tendency to think "If I did it in the harsh world, why should anyone have it easier than me?"
malmsteen 9y ago
That post looks so immature.. who the f* cares who created an app at the end of the day ? If you think it's the fact that she's young that made the app famous, then create a false young persona and the same with your own app instead. Only stupid people would care about who built it instead of the actual quality of the app. I've lost time even reading even the title of this post. #firstworldproblems
- sctb 9y ago
  You've been posting a lot of uncivil and/or unsubstantive comments, which violates the guidelines. Could you please (re-)read them and stop? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
shamdasani 9y ago
I'd like to weigh in on this as a 16 year old. By no means am I an experienced programmer [1], but I feel as if I am learning all that I can. Sure, stackoverflow and Google are there to help, but I make sure that I understand whatever I write. This girl is using her age as a marketing tactic, and I understand the point of the author, but this post goes too far. Instead of pointing out her faults by making a big deal on his blog, the author should reach out to her and explain his opinion in a mature manner. I don't think it is right to expose someone publicly just for making a mistake. [1]: https://shamdasani.org https://shamdasani.org
ragerino 9y ago
So what? Apple is selling other people's work as their own since decades.
gymshoes 9y ago
This happens a lot in India. There's a fraud by the name Ankit Fadia, who still sells plagiarised material and holds hands on 'ethical hacking' conferences.
- zuzuleinen 9y ago
  Well, at least Wikipedia is up to date https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ankit_Fadia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ankit_Fadia
exBarrelSpoiler 9y ago
She may be a plagiarist, but that doesn't mean the author of this post isn't also a bully who should be likewise questioned. There are extremists on both sides, the truth is in the middle, etc.
- jtriangle 9y ago
  https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/middle-ground https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/middle-ground An "extremist" would be the folks at 4chan sending her gore, dick pics, and death threats. The author of the post is responding to the initial vitriol spit by Harshita Arora and in context is well reasoned and well grounded.
stillsut 9y ago
I would like thank this 'namc' for putting in the journalistic-legwork to get us all closer to the truth. And also letting us draw our own conclusions. I think what's upsetting to me is not really this case in particular, but that I couldn't imagine any reputable tech journalism organization being able or willing to publish an expose like this. So cheers to all you HN citizen journalist digging into the commits and asset names to give us an idea what's behind the Press Release.
aje403 9y ago
I'm getting the vibe this person is a complete fraud. It seems likely that somebody is steering her on what to say, how to manage the project, and market herself as the visionary behind it. Reading through the comments "However her aptitude was pretty poor... I've mentored many kids in my life. At some point she was unable to even reason out how to convert a string to upper case. She said... What does this have to do with programming.... I want to build apps. After that she didn't talk to me much and I didn't bother either." These aren't really the people we should be lauding or giving a free ticket to MIT. From what I'm reading, she's probably a future successful corporate bullshit artist, but this is not a role model for anyone or a future visionary. I think it is good things like this get attention - young people should know they're not going to get ahead by stealing credit from others or falsifying their talents.
- stOneskull 9y ago
  man, i thought they were smart over at MIT
mtlynch 9y ago
Whatever the truth is, this is a terrible write-up. I'm surprised it's getting such traction because the "evidence" against her is pretty flimsy or non-existent. > I used a spare iPhone to get the app, and then used https://github.com/BishopFox/bfdecrypt https://github.com/BishopFox/bfdecrypt and https://github.com/BishopFox/bfinject https://github.com/BishopFox/bfinject to decrypt the app . >Here are a few things I found : >No, she did not code the app as she claims. In her defense, she has help from a few people, but I would call that bluff, given that help construed of over ~~50%~~ 90% of git commits. What? You can't get the git history by decrypting an app binary. The post shows a screenshot of a private git repo's commit history but no explanation of how it was obtained. The 16-year old girl claims (https://i.imgur.com/TQzc6TW.png https://i.imgur.com/TQzc6TW.png) that the other author has a high number of commits because he was committing code on her behalf because she didn't have a Github subscription for private repos. Fishy because that's a weird workflow, but not beyond a reasonable doubt. >There is no storyboard, lol. For any iOS dev who is just starting out, making an application without storyboards is just unbelievable. Maybe this is lost on me because I'm not an iOS developer, but is the author just accusing the girl of poor technique? That seems to support the case that she's an amateur developer. >So we did a grep for `com` on strings in the decrypted app, you will notice that on line 929 there is a mention of library which does not exist, and so I’m inclined to believe, this is who probably the author of original code is. A non-existent library created the app? What is this evidence of? >Upon reaching out to the the dev in question, he went to the extent of saying that he “allowed her” to call the app hers, given certain “circumstances”. Fair enough, we don’t see him bagging MIT scholarships, or all the accolades the girl is receiving for her app. Let’s pass on some appreciation to the so-called-mentor? Why are we not seeing proof that this conversation occurred? >Such kind of people give Women in Code a really, really bad name, because ~~sweetie~~, it takes tonnes of hardwork, cutting through competition, persistent dealing with sexism and lot of patience to make place for yourself in this male-dominant coveted industry. Addressing another developer as "sweetie" is deeply unprofessional. This whole sentence was dripping with obnoxious arrogance. This is the "investigator" we're taking at their word? In case the author changes the post, this is the version that I'm commenting on: https://archive.fo/9Jw4R https://archive.fo/9Jw4R
- monkeybutt 9y ago
Froyoh 9y ago
Cut the witch-hunt
current_call 9y ago
Who cares? Even if she is a fraud, the result of pointing this out is only going to give her more support and attention. The only reason young or female developers get weird media attention is because the same companies who abuse visas and get convicted of wage fixing are trying to get more cheap labor. They pour money and volunteers into charities and media; offers dwindle.
throwaway180118 9y ago
This guy sure went to great lengths to pwn this child.
B5E6ftS4tgpiW 9y ago
As a 16 year old male who has spent years and years hard at work, learning JavaScript and Rust, it really saddens me that people like this get the praise. There are lots of us working hard and putting in the hours, because we are intelligent enough to know that apps are a moonshot and not a key to success. I am all for gender equality, but it's blatant that the fact that the "developer" here is female has blown the actual achievement out of proportion. Maybe I should just get 'the change'. Maybe that's the key to success.
skate22 9y ago
"There is no storyboard, lol. For any iOS dev who is just starting out, making an application without storyboards is just unbelievable." When i was 17, for the 2nd iOS app i launched on the app store, i made the GUI programatically. It was a simple app and trying to combine story boards with code just confused me. I haven't investigated this app at all, but seriously? I stopped reading after that gross speculation.
- jason_slack 9y ago
  Me too. I don't and never have used a storyboard.
ryandrake 9y ago
Wow, this article is reminiscent of that other one a few months ago about that Chinese lady who made maker videos of herself doing 3D printing and soldering, and getting accused of fraud because she was a woman. Are you a “prodigy” for building an app? No. But you don’t deserve accusations backed by opinion and no evidence either.

243 points by Dawny33 9y ago

j-pb 9y ago

This is advertisement. They use her story to promote the app. Of course she didn't write the thing, no "child prodigy" that "released an app that will change the world" in the last 10 years of apps, did. It's either a political diversity narrative or emotional advertisement for a product. But yeah, let's all waste our time holding 16 old kids "accountable" for their "unethical" behaviour, like big boy adults do, that'll teach them how to grow up!

fiatjaf 9y ago
So you're ok with they getting away with the all lies, but if someone writes something debunking them, you criticize the guy?
radoslawc 9y ago
Right, let's not hold accountable 16 y old kids that do school shootings, those were only hormones.
FRex 9y ago
Yes. "If you manage to get social media on your side by endearing them then you can lie and steal" is the better lesson to teach a 16 year old. A 16 year old can waste his or her life by this age if he or she does really badly in school or smokes weed and gets caught. I can forgive teens for a lot of silly things like lying, cheating, petty crime, etc. but not doubling down when caught and creating a social media hatemob for someone questioning her. Also - she is not a kid. There are at least few countries in which a 16 year old can have sex, drive, drink alcohol, join military academy, etc. and at 17 or 18 the list of countries grows to hundreds of entries. And she is a "prodigy", not any ordinary kid and she defended herself very well (and evidently successfully considering the thread calling her out on reddit got outright removed, not just downvoted) on social media and even called the person claiming she is lying a "jobless disturbed harasser and bully". She has attended MIT Launch, was intern at Sales force. Along with writing that app she also localized this app to 10 languages (I'm not sure if she did it herself via Google Translate, the way she writes about it is not clear), optimized it for iPhone X, prepared a full release, all within these 2 months while coming across new techniques and concepts and learning them on the fly. This is all in her medium.com post and if she can do all of that she can get held to the same standard as an adult. And if it's someone just using her persona and doing all this then there is even a bigger problem, bordering on personality theft and fraud.
- Faaak 9y ago
  Being a kid is not a boolean value. You don't go from "being a kid" to "not being a kid". It's gradual. Some people are still kids at 19, others are quite mature at 17. Who knows, maybe her parents are pushing her a lot and she doesn't know how to react. We should give people the benefit of the doubt when we don't know the full story. She'll be forgiven in 2 months anyways..
  - FRex 9y ago
    > Being a kid is not a boolean value. You don't go from "being a kid" to "not being a kid". It's gradual. Some people are still kids at 19, others are quite mature at 17. It actually is boolean for many laws but that's beside the point. Whatever a threshold is a person who makes apps so quickly, calls herself an entrepreneur and a programmer, all while highlighting her young age (ostensibly to show that she is more mature or skilled than others that age) has crossed it. > Who knows, maybe her parents are pushing her a lot and she doesn't know how to react. Then just like with "a team" it's a big issue if her parents pushed her to do it all or did it for her and should not be swept under the rug because it's a woman in tech or a teen. > We should give people the benefit of the doubt when we don't know the full story. Too bad the author of this post doesn't get that. Instead they got called names, accused of bullying and harassment of a teen, accused of driving women out of tech, flagged (here too for a while apparently), and pretty much told to fuck off and die. It's only more ironic that the author is a woman too (which in an ideal world should not matter in the dispute but in USA/tech industry it seems to, although I've seen plenty of woman vs. woman disputes online where one woman will claim the other who criticizes her has "internalized sexism"). > She'll be forgiven in 2 months anyways.. Well yes. No one is going to crucify her for this but plagiarism and being put on a pedestal for things you didn't do are (in theory, apparently it is if you are a woman judging by some of the comments here[0]) not acceptable and can't be revealed and then just defended (not even disputed) by tons of people because the perpetrator is a woman or teen and thus beyond criticism or fair attribution of work. [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16307994 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16307994
- zolthrowaway 9y ago
  >A 16 year old can waste his or her life by this age if he or she does really badly in school or smokes weed and gets caught. I agree with the vast majority of your post, but I would say this part isn't super fair. Maybe I'm reading too much into this part, but outside of exceptional cases, we do give minors the chance to recover. I know people who had high school GPAs in the low 2s, that went to community college for 2 years, transferred to a solid university, and have a good career. At least where I live, your records are sealed at 18 unless you have been tried as an adult (which is exceedingly rare). You can definitely recover from an offense, but it is going to make things harder. Yes, a 16 year old doing some (alleged) unethical behavior should face some consequences, but no 16 year old should have their life ruined. Intelligence and maturity are not coupled.

jjevanoorschot 9y ago

"Such kind of people give Women in Code a really, really bad name, because sweetie, it takes tonnes of hardwork, cutting through competition, persistent dealing with sexism and lot of patience to make place for yourself in this male-dominant coveted industry." It's quite ironic that in a sentence about sexism and a male-dominated industry, the author addresses the developer by 'sweetie'.

psergeant 9y ago
Do you believe sweetie is a gendered word?
- SmellyGeekBoy 9y ago
  It seems to be one of those loaded words that's often used by a certain type of man to put women "in their place".
  - mosselman 9y ago
    So could be the word 'Geek', only to put smart people in their place, that didn't stop you from using it as a badge of honor in your nickname. So maybe you shouldn't blanket-accuse everyone of being a misogynist based on some hypothetical male character that you made up to fit some preconceived narrative of sexism, because that is in fact the true sexism here. There are plenty of people who use the word 'sweetie' endearingly, there is nothing wrong with that.
  - rep_movsd 9y ago
    You just cant handle the fact that a genuine really professional girl who is a coder cant be snarky when calling out a pleb of a teenaged liar? If anything its very civil language towards a spoilt brat whose parents should be ashamed to have raised a liar.
  - kiriakasis 9y ago
    i believe today "sweetie" is mostly used by women
  - 9y ago

staticelf 9y ago

It's a 16 year old girl that programmed an app, of course you're going to have a shitstorm when you deconstruct the truth of the matter. Good post though, I love people who exposes frauds.

jacknews 9y ago

>> he “allowed her” to call the app hers, given certain “circumstances”. Is this the actual quote? It sounds as though we're meant to read more into it. The real author could well be a parent, but I guess we're meant to read that it's a suitor.

theparanoid 9y ago
The "real" author was a contractor--it's common to see app development contracted out on UpWork. I wouldn't read much into the wording since he's not a native English speaker.

sus_007 9y ago

Wow, I was always a bit skeptic about this from the beginning. Already after reading her medium article I was convinced there is something fishy going on. Here I was putting together a simple web app after months of cramming textbooks & video tutorial series (as a 19 years old) & there she was winning acclaim for her fake commitment.

TomK32 9y ago

Young women interested in programming rare enough, let her get some help, let her have all the praise, that's okay. In years to come she'll hopefully stick to the field and that's what is important. Not that she wrote 100% of her app. What we must never forget, writing the code is just the small part, marketing and selling software is the bigger challenge. She's obviously good at that and will prevail no matter what the nit-pickers say.

kbart 9y ago
No, it's not ok, because as the original author highlights, such frauds diminish genuinely working women in tech (as is the author). For the same reason we don't give medals to the sportsmen that are caught cheating.
- Froyoh 9y ago
  Yes, it is okay.
radoslawc 9y ago
How do we help those that doesn't do frauds then?
- yorwba 9y ago
  Offer to review their code. Talented beginners tend to be unaware of the best/standard way to do things and are likely to produce code that works but is somehow strange. Point out how to do it differently when that happens, and make sure to explain the reasoning so they can avoid similar mistakes in the future. But don't give just negative feedback; also tell them when they have done particularly well, so they don't get discouraged. And sometimes just showing interest in what they are doing can be enough.
rep_movsd 9y ago
"What we must never forget, writing the code is just the small part, marketing and selling software is the bigger challenge. She's obviously good at that and will prevail no matter what the nit-pickers say" This is why we have shit software ecosystems - Take Microsoft as the biggest example of "its more important to sell stuff than get it right"

tomaskafka 9y ago

> But after reading her blogpost, her stackoverflow/github history in an attempt to understand her struggles as a self-taught programmer; I figured that there was no struggle at all! Self taught programmers are full of numerous questions, but she didn’t seem to have any! Neither is there any progression of all the tasks she did. This is just one of possible approaches. For example, I actively ask very rarely, the most you could find on SO would be upvotes to answers. With this approach, the author would probably conclude I didn't write my weather watchfaces myself, as there are almost no public traces of me doing so. And yet. https://apps.garmin.com/en-US/apps/2de2ee03-0f81-4668-b885-120def9f07c4 https://apps.garmin.com/en-US/apps/2de2ee03-0f81-4668-b885-1... https://apps.getpebble.com/en_US/application/56aeaa675fc3f1c4c700005b https://apps.getpebble.com/en_US/application/56aeaa675fc3f1c...

watwut 9y ago
This one jumped on me too. My history would quite the same and especially when I was younger. I would never ask under anything traceable back to me publicly. And I was always searching much more then actively asking, I asked online twice my whole life and got maybe one answer total. I would also keep stuff on my own disk until I thought it is progressed enough etc. I was too insecure to show progress, because progress contains more mistakes and I dont like looking dumb. It also makes it easier to tear you down if someone decides to. I mean, I have no idea what the conditions of that competition were and how much alone you was supposed to do it. I have no idea how much mentoring counts as too much and how much is fine. Nor whether this crosses the line. Just that, the above suspicion is dumb.
- LoSboccacc 9y ago
  "when I was younger" is a risky point of view: i.e. when I was younger I wrote a cycling manager game that was really a very very modded gorilla.bas, and there was no internet to use, only the inline help and that was it. that mindset of figuring things out by incremental change and debugging thoroughly sticks, and even if now I can say I'm used to stack overflow and the like I do see programmer that grew up in a fully connected social world do rely a lot more on the network to find answers than me.

076ae80a-3c97-4 9y ago

She may not be good at developing apps but she is good a lying... > I’m not sure who is the “someone else” here. The app is published from Ravinder Singh Arora’s (my Dad) account. I can’t sign up for an Apple Developer account because I’m <18. And I created the app on my own :) https://medium.com/@harshitaisanerd/im-not-sure-who-is-the-someone-else-here-e03f1e13fa40 https://medium.com/@harshitaisanerd/im-not-sure-who-is-the-s...

cruisemaniac 9y ago
This seems to be the part that upset a lot of people including the OP.

MarkCole 9y ago

This reads a lot like an attack. Yes its clear they did not program their app 100% themselves. I fail to see how it's such a big deal. Especially one that requires posts on multiple platforms targeting her. The other developers seem happy for her to take the credit, presumably as its good for marketing. Who is this really hurting?

gourou 9y ago
> we don’t see him bagging MIT scholarships, or all the accolades the girl is receiving for her app I guess she's worried that she'll get exposed further down the line and it would be bad for women who code in general
FRex 9y ago
When someone very prominently says they made an app, someone else says they didn't and the first person responds with calling them jobless, disturbed and a harasser then the gloves are off. And it hardly reads like an attack to me anyway, there are no insults, no ill wishes to her career or life, it's just very firm.
- MarkCole 9y ago
  > the first person responds with calling them jobless, disturbed and a harasser then the gloves are off Well that reaction seems to have come after they were harrassed, called a dumb kid, and a lying piece of shit[1]. This is a 16 year old, they're going to make mistakes. This level of hate for something very minor is really out of proportion. They did after all contribute at least partly towards the app, so it's more of an exaggeration than an all out lie. [1] https://imgur.com/a/jFbQR https://imgur.com/a/jFbQR
yorwba 9y ago
It appears that the author originally reached out to her because she wanted to offer mentorship. Then she realized that the code wasn't the work of someone who'd need a mentor, but an experienced developer who'd done the actual coding. And the girl had the gall to downplay the level of "help" she received. Instead of the talented and hard-working individual she expected, the author found someone who'd take credit for the work of others to gain internet fame. I don't think this article is the best reaction to that (hurling insults usually doesn't help anyone), but I can understand how she'd get pissed about that kind of behavior.

unvs 9y ago

> but coding =! app development That's a pretty funny typo from someone defending themselves against accusations of not knowing how to program.

ealexhudson 9y ago

I have to say, I found the "story" very leading. A lot of inconclusive evidence labelled a lot stronger than it deserves, especially the "confession". The reality of a lot of app development now is that you can go a long way by not doing very much. Ok, so the git graph shows another developer committed many more lines: since when have we, as an industry, taken KLOC as a serious measure of anything?? Those lines of code could well be XML UI structures or a bunch of config spat out from an IDE. Is she an amazing developer? No, she admits as much - she claims 10k lines of code, a bunch of which may have been StackOverflow'd, and she doesn't claim experience. She says she has trouble with Python. Such a big deal over such a minor thing.

rep_movsd 9y ago
I actually have the entire source code so I have enough evidence. Obviously I can't reveal it since it would be illegal. But she gave it to me of her own free will, and if you think 10000 lines can be SO'd then you live in a bubble
- simias 9y ago
  If you want us to believe you without giving any proof you'll have to give us more evidence. Why did she give you the (incriminating) source? Why can't you reveal it? What in said source code convinces you she didn't write it?
  - whatshisface 9y ago
    Presumably, you could perform many of the decompiling steps that the author performed. A great deal of the parent article seems reproduceable.
  - rep_movsd 9y ago
    You can see in the conversation screenshot that she uploaded code on Google drive at my request - my only intention was to review the code. Yes she trusted me that much - in fact there are a lot of peoples code I have reviewed and fixed. The code is too complicated for a beginner to have written. There are generator expressions, lambdas and what not in there. I could go ahead and post the previous conversations where I was struggling to get basic programming concepts into her head, but shes already gone rabid in trying to discredit me. More material from my side will make her react even more extremely. My biggest question and open challenge to her is this: If she wrote all of it - 1) Show us the git log 2) If she insists aviral corrected and merged the code himself, show us the original fragments of code she sent, or show us the mails containing fragments of code if she emailed it to him. If aviral was really a mentor, why would he use this crude method of collaboration, he'd explain how to use git and github to her to raise pull requests, commit code and so on. Even the most pleb developer uses github and manages to commit code and so forth to it in a few days. Just look at the number of git repos with hello world like code in them. I'm sure she'll come up with some excuse why the above is impossible like "we deleted intermediate stuff and mails", or "I dont know how to use git", or whatever hamstering. I saw bullshit I called it. The burden of proof is on her. I have much more to lose by lying than she does. I have a life, a career and people will surely take the word of a teenage girl over a man in his 30s. She could instantly destroy all my credibility and reputation by showing proof. In the unlikely event that she can provide proof that can convince without doubt, then I'll eat my words. If she can't then its her word against mine - I have nothing to lose or gain by her rise or fall, I don't even own Macs, iPhones or do mobile development. I have no motivation to lie. I've built apps all my life. She has every motivation to - this is her ticket to getting into the USA. Also what about the guy who was told directly by aviral that aviral developed the app for a small sum of money under an NDA? Aviral has even tweeted something to the effect of "I lost respect for this guy who made a private conversation public". That's damning evidence.

TorKlingberg 9y ago

It's not plagiarism, it's a team putting the 16-year-old in front for the media attention. The crypto currency space is full of dodgy stuff, so not surprising. The author of this post seem to have it out for the girl personally, which is unnecessary.

FRex 9y ago
She personally claims to have written it all on her own, in the press release she also says she was intern at Sales force in Bangalore, attended MIT Launch and her profile says she is a "16 year old programmer and entrepreneur" along with a link to "my app". She also called the person disputing that a jobless disturbed bully, harasser and troll and due to internet "siding with her" the author was met with abuse for "harassing a kid" and insults despite the proof they provided about app possibly being a team work or work of someone else. And if all her social media posts are "a team" then this is even more unethical.
- TorKlingberg 9y ago
  Yes, that's what the current social media climate is like unfortunately. An internet mob harassing someone seems to be the default answer to everything, and each person participating thinks they are fighting for justice or something. I just don't think HN piling on is going to help.
  - jtriangle 9y ago
    So you're saying that we should just let people lie and get away with it? Because right now she's getting away with it.
dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago
It looks you're right. She was writing something, then the other guy was reviewing and correcting it, at least this is what she claims: https://imgur.com/0ihzIzy https://imgur.com/0ihzIzy

cruisemaniac 9y ago

I'm concerned with the parenting thats at play here! "Giving credit where due" is something so simple yet hugely absent in this incident!

Shinchy 9y ago

I could understand if the App did something amazing, but it's just a basic Crypto tracking app - there are thousands of these already on the App Store. I'm sure she did work on it to some extent, it's nothing spectacular. Looks like a fairly basic 'follow the tutorial' first App, but maybe that's just me.

sus_007 9y ago
It's not about the complexity of the app that bothers me, it's the praise she is getting from people for falsely claiming that she solely developed the app with negligible help from other devs which turns out to be completely untrue.

rep_movsd 9y ago

Why is this flagged? How can we request unflagging? Is it all about censorship of harsh truths?

sarreph 9y ago
I second this. Feels like something fishy is going on, given all the author’s prior references of being flagged on other platforms.
kilotaras 9y ago
> How can we request unflagging? There's a "vouch" button once you have enough karma.
grzm 9y ago
Members may flag submissions due to the resulting discussion on HN as much as the submission itself: the sets of topics that are interesting and topics that can be constructively discusses on HN are not identical. Both are important to keep HN interesting. FWIW, it's not flagged at the time I'm writing this comment.
- YouAreGreat 9y ago
  Quality of HN commentary is down and the flagging epidemic is part of it. The problem is sinking and killing discussions that already got going. A minority of selfish users gets to demolish collaborative work that other users already invested in. The incentives are for lower effort from commenters. A downward spiral.
DoreenMichele 9y ago
Flagging is something users do on HN, not mods. If you have enough karma, you can vouch for flagged items. You can also email the mods if you think it merits mod intervention. I have done so a few times to say stuff like "It is a good article with a bad title. I think users are flagging in reaction to the title without reading it." In such cases, they sometimes turn off flags and retitle the piece. Large group dynamics are inevitably messy and complicated. It doesn't really help to get up in arms about that fact.

dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago

Why is this story flagged? It somehow proves the author's point.

pjc50 9y ago
It's difficult-to-verify flamebait, and if it's not true then it's harassing a kid. It also reminds me of the Naomi Wu fiasco, where people thought that a woman couldn't possibly be doing all the things she said she did. And ultimately apologised.
aiCeivi9 9y ago
It feels a bit like witch hunting and it is probably the reason it got removed from reddit. Anyway "X got removed so X is true" is a slippery slope if not outright false.
- dvfjsdhgfv 9y ago
  It was enough to answer just like she did here: https://imgur.com/0ihzIzy https://imgur.com/0ihzIzy Personally I believe her explanations, but then it doesn't look like she was really writing everything on her own.

zuzuleinen 9y ago

Why is this flagged?

YouAreGreat 9y ago
Is flagging on HN distinguishable from overpowered downvote?

mattdeboard 9y ago

This is just peak hacker news right here

not_okay 9y ago

The author of the article comes across poorly here - this is nothing more than bullying and harassment of the app developer, just because they didn't meet the exacting standards of this critic. So the app developer had some mentorship, and probably copied and pasted a handful of code snippets she didn't have a deep understanding of. So what? That doesn't justify this completely over the top reaction.

arno_app 9y ago

I‘m sorry but the author is indeed a bully. I get the point why it may be unethical to copy and claim it’s someone’s own work but afaik the “real” coders were alright with this. The author tries with all effort to proof that this kid can’t Code by saying how experienced he is and that he was also smart when he was her age. For me this sounds like being very jealous and frustrated.

geodel 9y ago
The author is women. And this just seems to be case where family 'helps' kid to chart their independent path. It is pretty common and I have known many people who would hire some contractors to write some mobile apps that can be used to garnish resume for college admissions etc. People have been doing it forever but with help of social media they can generate lot of support and sympathy also if they fit in right slot of identity politics.
- Froyoh 9y ago
  So what the author is a woman?

throwaway2016a 9y ago

I have a related question. Since when is a 16 year old who makes an app a prodigy? Even if she did write it all by herself? I was getting paid to make back office software for local businesses at 13 in 1998 with absolutely no help from anyone and no one called me a prodigy. I'm sure tons of NH people have similar stories. I seem to remember a survey at one point that the average person on HN who actually codes started coding at around 12. Perhaps we should be teaching young people that coding is an obtainable goal that if you put your mind to it and work hard you can do? Not something you need to be a "prodigy" to do.

dudul 9y ago
I would say that it depends on the maturity of the app. If it's 2 or 3 screens with a couple buttons yeah, nothing extraordinary. If it can handle a massive load and do actual complicated calculation then it's more impressive. I was also making websites for business at the beginning of the Internet when I was a teen. But back then anybody who could understand HTML was seen as a freaking wizard :) But I also recognize that the complexity of what I was building was nowhere near what I do today for example.
EnderMB 9y ago
It's easy enough to write code when you're young, but to write something that is being actively used is impressive. With that being said, I do find the worship of young people in tech a bit worrying. Over the years I've worked with a handful of talented developers that have started from a very young age, and over the years they become very good at a relatively young age. By the time they reach 20, they're senior-level developers. That's all well and good, but these youngsters have been praised for years. Once they reach their twenties, they go from being young to being an adult, like everyone else. All of a sudden, the slack they were given to build their career up is gone, and many of them struggle from here onwards. It can be a mixture of being treated differently, or from essentially being jaded about dedicating that many years of their youth to a skill to be building the same old CRUD shit year after year.
- cableshaft 9y ago

k__ 9y ago

I once read that a big problem in the industry are already established women. There seems to be the tendency to think "If I did it in the harsh world, why should anyone have it easier than me?"

malmsteen 9y ago

That post looks so immature.. who the f* cares who created an app at the end of the day ? If you think it's the fact that she's young that made the app famous, then create a false young persona and the same with your own app instead. Only stupid people would care about who built it instead of the actual quality of the app. I've lost time even reading even the title of this post. #firstworldproblems

sctb 9y ago
You've been posting a lot of uncivil and/or unsubstantive comments, which violates the guidelines. Could you please (re-)read them and stop? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

shamdasani 9y ago

I'd like to weigh in on this as a 16 year old. By no means am I an experienced programmer [1], but I feel as if I am learning all that I can. Sure, stackoverflow and Google are there to help, but I make sure that I understand whatever I write. This girl is using her age as a marketing tactic, and I understand the point of the author, but this post goes too far. Instead of pointing out her faults by making a big deal on his blog, the author should reach out to her and explain his opinion in a mature manner. I don't think it is right to expose someone publicly just for making a mistake. [1]: https://shamdasani.org https://shamdasani.org

ragerino 9y ago

So what? Apple is selling other people's work as their own since decades.

gymshoes 9y ago

This happens a lot in India. There's a fraud by the name Ankit Fadia, who still sells plagiarised material and holds hands on 'ethical hacking' conferences.

zuzuleinen 9y ago
Well, at least Wikipedia is up to date https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ankit_Fadia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ankit_Fadia

exBarrelSpoiler 9y ago

She may be a plagiarist, but that doesn't mean the author of this post isn't also a bully who should be likewise questioned. There are extremists on both sides, the truth is in the middle, etc.

jtriangle 9y ago
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/middle-ground https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/middle-ground An "extremist" would be the folks at 4chan sending her gore, dick pics, and death threats. The author of the post is responding to the initial vitriol spit by Harshita Arora and in context is well reasoned and well grounded.

stillsut 9y ago

I would like thank this 'namc' for putting in the journalistic-legwork to get us all closer to the truth. And also letting us draw our own conclusions. I think what's upsetting to me is not really this case in particular, but that I couldn't imagine any reputable tech journalism organization being able or willing to publish an expose like this. So cheers to all you HN citizen journalist digging into the commits and asset names to give us an idea what's behind the Press Release.

aje403 9y ago

I'm getting the vibe this person is a complete fraud. It seems likely that somebody is steering her on what to say, how to manage the project, and market herself as the visionary behind it. Reading through the comments "However her aptitude was pretty poor... I've mentored many kids in my life. At some point she was unable to even reason out how to convert a string to upper case. She said... What does this have to do with programming.... I want to build apps. After that she didn't talk to me much and I didn't bother either." These aren't really the people we should be lauding or giving a free ticket to MIT. From what I'm reading, she's probably a future successful corporate bullshit artist, but this is not a role model for anyone or a future visionary. I think it is good things like this get attention - young people should know they're not going to get ahead by stealing credit from others or falsifying their talents.

stOneskull 9y ago
man, i thought they were smart over at MIT

mtlynch 9y ago

Whatever the truth is, this is a terrible write-up. I'm surprised it's getting such traction because the "evidence" against her is pretty flimsy or non-existent. > I used a spare iPhone to get the app, and then used https://github.com/BishopFox/bfdecrypt https://github.com/BishopFox/bfdecrypt and https://github.com/BishopFox/bfinject https://github.com/BishopFox/bfinject to decrypt the app . >Here are a few things I found : >No, she did not code the app as she claims. In her defense, she has help from a few people, but I would call that bluff, given that help construed of over ~~50%~~ 90% of git commits. What? You can't get the git history by decrypting an app binary. The post shows a screenshot of a private git repo's commit history but no explanation of how it was obtained. The 16-year old girl claims (https://i.imgur.com/TQzc6TW.png https://i.imgur.com/TQzc6TW.png) that the other author has a high number of commits because he was committing code on her behalf because she didn't have a Github subscription for private repos. Fishy because that's a weird workflow, but not beyond a reasonable doubt. >There is no storyboard, lol. For any iOS dev who is just starting out, making an application without storyboards is just unbelievable. Maybe this is lost on me because I'm not an iOS developer, but is the author just accusing the girl of poor technique? That seems to support the case that she's an amateur developer. >So we did a grep for `com` on strings in the decrypted app, you will notice that on line 929 there is a mention of library which does not exist, and so I’m inclined to believe, this is who probably the author of original code is. A non-existent library created the app? What is this evidence of? >Upon reaching out to the the dev in question, he went to the extent of saying that he “allowed her” to call the app hers, given certain “circumstances”. Fair enough, we don’t see him bagging MIT scholarships, or all the accolades the girl is receiving for her app. Let’s pass on some appreciation to the so-called-mentor? Why are we not seeing proof that this conversation occurred? >Such kind of people give Women in Code a really, really bad name, because ~~sweetie~~, it takes tonnes of hardwork, cutting through competition, persistent dealing with sexism and lot of patience to make place for yourself in this male-dominant coveted industry. Addressing another developer as "sweetie" is deeply unprofessional. This whole sentence was dripping with obnoxious arrogance. This is the "investigator" we're taking at their word? In case the author changes the post, this is the version that I'm commenting on: https://archive.fo/9Jw4R https://archive.fo/9Jw4R

monkeybutt 9y ago

Froyoh 9y ago

Cut the witch-hunt

current_call 9y ago

Who cares? Even if she is a fraud, the result of pointing this out is only going to give her more support and attention. The only reason young or female developers get weird media attention is because the same companies who abuse visas and get convicted of wage fixing are trying to get more cheap labor. They pour money and volunteers into charities and media; offers dwindle.

throwaway180118 9y ago

This guy sure went to great lengths to pwn this child.

B5E6ftS4tgpiW 9y ago

As a 16 year old male who has spent years and years hard at work, learning JavaScript and Rust, it really saddens me that people like this get the praise. There are lots of us working hard and putting in the hours, because we are intelligent enough to know that apps are a moonshot and not a key to success. I am all for gender equality, but it's blatant that the fact that the "developer" here is female has blown the actual achievement out of proportion. Maybe I should just get 'the change'. Maybe that's the key to success.

skate22 9y ago

"There is no storyboard, lol. For any iOS dev who is just starting out, making an application without storyboards is just unbelievable." When i was 17, for the 2nd iOS app i launched on the app store, i made the GUI programatically. It was a simple app and trying to combine story boards with code just confused me. I haven't investigated this app at all, but seriously? I stopped reading after that gross speculation.

jason_slack 9y ago
Me too. I don't and never have used a storyboard.

ryandrake 9y ago

Wow, this article is reminiscent of that other one a few months ago about that Chinese lady who made maker videos of herself doing 3D printing and soldering, and getting accused of fraud because she was a woman. Are you a “prodigy” for building an app? No. But you don’t deserve accusations backed by opinion and no evidence either.