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by oh_sigh 2572 days ago
My specific and helpful feedback to you would be to not immediately feel attacked if someone criticizes something tangentially related to your work. OP never said your work was bullshit. They said the article/coverage of your work is probably 'breathless gushing bullshit'.

OP was actually wrong with their hueristic in this case - the article doesn't really go into your age beyond a passing mention, but that doesn't change the fact that OPs critique was with article writers, not programmers-who-have-their-work-written about.
1 comments
thesephist 2572 days ago
Point taken. Thanks for noting.

Still feels like HN generally has a counterproductive attitude to stories of this type.

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oh_sigh 2572 days ago
Oh, 100%. Unfortunately the best strategy I think is to just ignore the mindless comments and pick and choose who you are going to have a conversation with.

Personally, I think your project is getting coverage not at all because of your age, but because it produces interesting results that people want to see, regardless of whether the algorithm used is considered cutting edge or not.

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RobertKerans 2571 days ago
It's getting coverage [on the website of the company that provided the API that was used for the app] _because_ of the age , that's why the age is in the headline, it's a gift-wrapped marketing win.

This isn't to denigrate the work of either of the two kids involved: the program produced is interesting and fun, the encouragement is awesome, and they've lucked out with this publicity and should milk it for all it's worth.

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