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Ask HN: What exactly is a hackathon? How do I participate and why?

8 points by eibrahim 14y ago

dhruvbird 14y ago
A hackathon is essentially a code-sprint. Imagine running a marathon - except you're doing it by writing code. The reasons are many, and depend a lot on what you want from the hackathon and what others (the ones you'll be hacking with want). For example, in a small company setting, hackathons are great to implement features or fix-bugs that have been lying around for a while. It's a concentrated effort to get something done. In a medium sized setting, a hackathon might serve the purpose more of enabling newbies (or people from outside a certain team) to get to know another team's code-base and philosophy. In a slightly larger sized company setting, a hackathon might just be more about idea exchange and getting to know people simply because there might be a lack of focus with so many people around. That's just my take on hackathons. I'm sure there are other more interesting views on it. And whatever you do, please sleep well and eat healthy when you're participating in one.
jyu 14y ago
A hackathon is another form of self selection, much like going to a club where any guy needs to buy a bottle to get in. The bottle in this case is willingness to spend your free weekend on coding up some random project. Usually the participants like programming, have an idea, or just like socializing with other coders. You can find hackathons through websites, meetups, friends. These two websites are pretty helpful: http://hackathon.io/ http://hackathon.io/ https://www.hackerleague.org/ https://www.hackerleague.org/ While I have only participated in 1 event, it seems like the winning teams are ones with good idea, decent presentation skills and come prepared to execute. Ones that work well with each other, have a solid idea, done some fundamental ground work like looking through the APIs to see what kind of data and queries you can do, manipulating JSON, bootstrap, and basic teamwork stuff (github push / pull / merging), etc. You meet all sorts of people at these things, and exposes you to more randomness. If you haven't done one, book a weekend and try it. And please take care of your self with healthy food and a decent night's sleep.

8 points by eibrahim 14y ago

A hackathon is essentially a code-sprint. Imagine running a marathon - except you're doing it by writing code. The reasons are many, and depend a lot on what you want from the hackathon and what others (the ones you'll be hacking with want). For example, in a small company setting, hackathons are great to implement features or fix-bugs that have been lying around for a while. It's a concentrated effort to get something done. In a medium sized setting, a hackathon might serve the purpose more of enabling newbies (or people from outside a certain team) to get to know another team's code-base and philosophy. In a slightly larger sized company setting, a hackathon might just be more about idea exchange and getting to know people simply because there might be a lack of focus with so many people around. That's just my take on hackathons. I'm sure there are other more interesting views on it. And whatever you do, please sleep well and eat healthy when you're participating in one.

jyu 14y ago

A hackathon is another form of self selection, much like going to a club where any guy needs to buy a bottle to get in. The bottle in this case is willingness to spend your free weekend on coding up some random project. Usually the participants like programming, have an idea, or just like socializing with other coders. You can find hackathons through websites, meetups, friends. These two websites are pretty helpful: http://hackathon.io/ http://hackathon.io/ https://www.hackerleague.org/ https://www.hackerleague.org/ While I have only participated in 1 event, it seems like the winning teams are ones with good idea, decent presentation skills and come prepared to execute. Ones that work well with each other, have a solid idea, done some fundamental ground work like looking through the APIs to see what kind of data and queries you can do, manipulating JSON, bootstrap, and basic teamwork stuff (github push / pull / merging), etc. You meet all sorts of people at these things, and exposes you to more randomness. If you haven't done one, book a weekend and try it. And please take care of your self with healthy food and a decent night's sleep.