How Facebook organizes hackaphones
Hackathons (hackathon = hack + marathon) are an important part of the Facebook culture. And if you don’t know yet, in Facebook, Facebook will be held on October 28 as part of the conference. Toaster [web development] . In the meantime, Alex Moskalyuk talks about how it happens in Facebook itself:
In a few words I would like to talk about the practice of hackaphones inside Facebook. Today this word can be seen in the context of thematic conferences or parties. Inside the company, the practice originated in relatively distant times, and the first mention of hackathons on the corporate blog dates back to 2007 . In those early versions of the hacaphone, people were locked up at night in the office and under the melodic rhythms of some techno and seemingly endless liters of beer or wine (the second in California is quite actively competing with the first ) indulged in a favorite activity.
For some programmers, hackaphones are a vent and an opportunity to tackle a product or technology that has been interested for a long time, but lacked time to study. For others - the ability to write the right tool in production. For some others, this is the potential to show themselves in a new field and to do, for example, design, if before that they were engaged in, say, programming a photo storage. Often, non-technical departments of a company can act as a customer of a project — say, someone from the user support department can offer a new interface or filter that would make their work much easier, and someone who sympathizes with programmers decides to become a hero for the day by writing a couple of forms that make it easier data analysis.
Such organized events are useful for the company because
The process of hacaphone looks like this:
The hackaphone can last from one night to three days. Long hakafony characteristic in the summer, when the staff of developers is doubled due to trainees.
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After the hakafon, the participants are given about 3-4 days to smooth out the roughness (already in their free time), after which, in the cafeteria of the company, those who wish can spend a three-minute demonstration of the project. There is no pressure in terms of demonstration - if the project is not ready, it can be finalized later. If the goal of the hackaphone was to have your own education (say, to master Node.js or Twilio API for some basic application), then the end result will not always be something worthy of presentation, but the developer has achieved his goal for the hackathon.
The presentation of the project is often accompanied by cries from the audience. Hackhoner vocabulary after an exhausting night is usually brief and contains the following terms:
In a few words I would like to talk about the practice of hackaphones inside Facebook. Today this word can be seen in the context of thematic conferences or parties. Inside the company, the practice originated in relatively distant times, and the first mention of hackathons on the corporate blog dates back to 2007 . In those early versions of the hacaphone, people were locked up at night in the office and under the melodic rhythms of some techno and seemingly endless liters of beer or wine (the second in California is quite actively competing with the first ) indulged in a favorite activity.
For some programmers, hackaphones are a vent and an opportunity to tackle a product or technology that has been interested for a long time, but lacked time to study. For others - the ability to write the right tool in production. For some others, this is the potential to show themselves in a new field and to do, for example, design, if before that they were engaged in, say, programming a photo storage. Often, non-technical departments of a company can act as a customer of a project — say, someone from the user support department can offer a new interface or filter that would make their work much easier, and someone who sympathizes with programmers decides to become a hero for the day by writing a couple of forms that make it easier data analysis.
Such organized events are useful for the company because
- employees discover niches that they are interested in and that they can engage in on a permanent basis in the long term - in other companies there is a practice for the same purposes 20% of the time
- the set of internal tools is enhanced, and if designers are connected to the hackaphone, the convenience of these tools is also enhanced
- Companies can get beta testers for new platform technologies - let's say, before the release of the first version of the classic API, the first version of the OpenGraph API, and the first version of the mobile platform on Facebook, they organized thematic hackathons, where people were asked to make a full-fledged application in a few days and report uncomfortable or non-working things
- People who may not face each other due to their narrow specialization cooperate with developers from another team, trainees and technical staff from other departments for the time of the hakafon
The process of hacaphone looks like this:
- his date is announced a few weeks in advance so that people who are interested in spending the night at the office can plan their personal schedule
- On the internal wiki-page, people can publish ideas that they are going to work on, and at the same time recruit associates
- if for an employee this is the first hackaphone in his career, then he must program (this is done not so much because of some cult considerations, but because the organizers like the renamed eighth rule of Tyler Durden )
- the employee is recommended to work on something other than his daily projects, otherwise the hackaphone cannot be distinguished from work
- by evening, a group of participants gathers in a circle where everyone talks about what he plans to do (and here it is quite reasonable to declare himself as a “mercenary” who can help those who need people)
- people are divided into small groups and usually go to the negotiation room to work in a close team environment
The hackaphone can last from one night to three days. Long hakafony characteristic in the summer, when the staff of developers is doubled due to trainees.
')
After the hakafon, the participants are given about 3-4 days to smooth out the roughness (already in their free time), after which, in the cafeteria of the company, those who wish can spend a three-minute demonstration of the project. There is no pressure in terms of demonstration - if the project is not ready, it can be finalized later. If the goal of the hackaphone was to have your own education (say, to master Node.js or Twilio API for some basic application), then the end result will not always be something worthy of presentation, but the developer has achieved his goal for the hackathon.
The presentation of the project is often accompanied by cries from the audience. Hackhoner vocabulary after an exhausting night is usually brief and contains the following terms:
- do it live - briefly means “we don’t need presentation slides, just show the demo as it works on your server today, and if it drops in the process, the public will get even more pleasure from the real-time effect”
- ship it - like "ship to the site even today"
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/130170/
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