6 ms·
Homeless man releases app after learning to code
- bigd 13y agoGood for him. Now, why should we give a shit? since when should we care about who does what? sorry but for what I remember, this must be the third attempt to go viral with this crap. TLDR: another carpooling app.
- Axsuul 13y agoNo one succeeds with their first app. Failure leads to success. We should applaud him for actually releasing an app. That's a feat in itself.
- mburney 13y agoBeing homeless and finding a way to release an app is a good example of resourcefulness.
- bigd 13y ago>‘Homeless coder’ saga shows connections matter more than coding skills (washingtonpost.com) 2 points by Libertatea 2 days ago | 0 comments | cached > https://api.thriftdb.com/api.hnsearch.com/items/_search?filter[fields][discussion.sigid]=6894396-5ca27&limit=100&pretty_print=true https://api.thriftdb.com/api.hnsearch.com/items/_search?filt... Leo The Homeless Coder (media-results) (imgur.com) 1 point by Empathenosis 3 days ago | 1 comments | cached > https://api.thriftdb.com/api.hnsearch.com/items/_search?filter[fields][discussion.sigid]=6887789-b3561&limit=100&pretty_print=true https://api.thriftdb.com/api.hnsearch.com/items/_search?filt... > The Real Story of the Homeless Coder (youtube.com) 4 points by danboarder 5 hours ago | 0 comments | cached those are just the first two pages. Now, My point is : "bravo leo. but enough with this Oprah shit." IMHO this story is borderline spam.
- agorabinary 13y agoNot everyone can think of the next genius app on their first try. Unlike you, apparently.
- drvdevd 13y agoYeah. I'm gonna have to agree with you here. I'm all for charity, but in the end, an app is an app. If we want to be truly unbiased, why should we care that the guy who wrote it was homeless? Shouldn't we focus on the quality of the app? And after enough homeless people "learn to code" at what point does this story cease to be newsworthy?
- tarr11 13y agoThe biggest problem for apps right now is discovery and this is a smart way to get discovered.
- uptown 13y agoWho asked you to 'give a shit'? Who even asked you to weigh in on this? TLDR: Nobody.
- Dylan16807 13y agoEveryone upvoting it on the discussion site news.ycombinator.com
- Hydraulix989 13y agoI think the intended intent behind an upvote on these news aggregation sites is that the actor oneself "gives a shit" about the article -- rather than "wants others to 'give a shit'" about the article. Of course, in practice, it's the latter, especially for one's own submissions.
- newobj 13y agoLadies and gentlemen... HACKER NEWS! Tada!
- pera 13y agoI find your comment pretty harsh, and I think you have a narrow view of the story: it's not about how amazingly innovative this app is, it's about how a man who has nothing but a laptop could learn how to program and release something that is useful for many people. My question to you is why shouldn't we care about another human being? imo the problem is that you're so submerged in the industry-driven world that your mind believes the value of a person is based on their capacity to create the next Big Product... it's sad.
- smtddr 13y agoEvery time... Conspiracy theory: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6441795 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6441795 Potential examples: 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6885123 2. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6365495 3. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6448409 4. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6857739 5. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6035263 - This is the most obvious one. 6. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6902563 - Cover up. I'm going to just keep on collecting these links and post it on every instance I see. This will be added as the 7th.
- aptwebapps 13y agoThe pattern is obvious, but I don't know why you think there's a conspiracy behind it. People don't need conspiracies to act like that.
- ctdonath 13y agoExcellent. Instead of just taking other people's money and giving it to someone for no return, an individual actually chose charity, aided the willing without government interference, and "taught a man to fish." Bravo!
- troglodie 13y agoExcellent. Instead of looking at the bigger picture that depicts how this isn't a viable option to solve the problems of poverty and homelessness, you co-opt it as a libertarian talking point. Bravo! This guy most likely would have had the same fate as a majority of the homeless if it wasn't for a select individual who decided to dedicate his time to educate the man on how to write code. To pretend that this situation is anything other than a reflection on the sad state of affairs.the disadvantaged in this country face, the reality that says if they don't happen to know someone who is willing to dedicate a large chunk of time to adequately prepare them to enter a new profession and provide necessities, they are screwed, is myopic and incredibly self-serving. There is a reason we have a social safety net, it is because fluff pieces like this cannot be applied to the situation at large, and disadvantaged people tend to fall through the cracks thus have less people in their lives who might help them like this man. Reading this article and twisting it into a talking point that will be construed as advocacy of dismantling that safety net isn't something to be proud of.
- coldtea 13y agoOr, you know, you could come to the exact inverse conclusion: An sad isolated example where a man helps another man (arbitrarily him, and to the neglect of others in the same condition), instead of our society having standard procedures and programs to help everybody in the same situation.
- FellowTraveler 13y agoJust because society is supposed to do something, does not mean that government is supposed to do that thing. Likely the problem you are so quick to put government in charge of, wouldn't be a problem in the first place if we had a free economy.
- zacinbusiness 13y agoWow! I've got no excuse!
- ritchiea 13y agoOn one hand this is great, on the other, what does this guy do now? How does this help him? I imagine this helps his self esteem, which is a good thing and a meaningful non-tangible benefit. But it's not as though he can go get a job now. And he still doesn't have a place to live. And I'm not saying the dev who taught Leo to code is somehow in the wrong, I'm genuinely curious what the next step could be for this gentleman.
- moocowduckquack 13y agoThis isn't actually as rare as is being made out, though good luck to him, once he has an online folio of work sorted he should be able to freelance off this. A lot of people have housing problems during their lives and there are a fair few coders, so it is no surprise that the two sets overlap, especially given the tendency to nomadism. It is amazing what you can do with a cheap laptop and free wifi.
- coldtea 13y ago>This isn't actually as rare as is being made out Well, of all the app developers (there are now 1 million apps for iOS alone, so let's say all US developers are 100,000) how many are similar cases? 1? 2? 10? 1 such story in multiple thousands IS rate in my books.
- moocowduckquack 13y ago3.5 million people in the US experience homelessness in any given year, I think you would be suprised how many professionals have gone through a period of homelessness. Most people who have gone through housing problems don't tend to advertise the fact in work situations.
- iancarroll 13y agoIt costs 99 cents. That's 70 cents per install. A few days ago, this app was #10 on the App Store. I can imagine this will help him a lot.
- myk7 13y ago
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- johngrefe 13y agoThis is why I don't lurk HN much anymore. Great story, terrible discussion.