[davesims]

We just had a very successful hackathon where I work. About 10 separate teams coded basically overnight and the results I think surprised everybody. There was something about the energy and, well, slight insanity of staying up all night just to see if we could deliver a full product in under 20 hours...there was definitely something to it. The demo the next morning, where all the teams showed what they had done was pretty dang impressive. A few of the delivered results will likely become real products.

So from my perspective, the energy and "field day" attitude of a hackathon creates an urgency and focus that's feels like the early days of a startup, where sheer adrenaline and excitement creates more productive mental state and team effort I think. It's a thing, I tell you.

[neilk]

> slight insanity of staying up all night

I may be weird, but I find that sleep deprivation is sometimes helpful.

After 20 years of development I have put my fingers in every mousetrap there is. So I can be overcautious.

The critical voices seem to be silenced first when I'm sleep deprived. Granted I'm probably not at my best as a developer either, so I wish I could figure out some way to enter that state at will, and re-enter my critical mode when I need to test or debug.

[j-kidd]

This is exactly what the OP warned against. When the marketing people find out about all these "near products" you guys churned out in a day, say goodbye to sane development schedule.

[kennu]

Seems like it's similar to physically going to conferences and focusing on some topic 100%, instead of just watching the same video streams and presentations at home.