[Ovid]

I am totally lost by this post. I've attended several hackathons, but they're nothing like what's described. They tend to be 9-to-5 affairs stretched out over several days. The food at the last one had a lot of fruit, healthy sandwiches, plenty of water, juice, coffee, tea, (and yes, some junk food). We saved the boozing for dinner.

And the hackathons weren't a distraction. Yes, some people ran around and talked a lot and there was definitely socializing going on (if you're not a people person, a hackathon may not be for you), but really: a lot of the talk was with people who were experts in the problem area we were gathered to deal with and this made us so much more productive. I've been to five or six hackathons now and generally just about everyone turns out plenty of great stuff there.

We got a lot of great stuff done, had some fun, caught up with old friends and got to visit a new country (well, not me. The hackathon was here in Paris).

[rtkwe]

That's the problem with "X is bad/terrible" posts. They focus on one interpretation or implementation then focuses on the bad parts of that one version of the concept. Are late night sleep deprived coding fests terrible ideas as a sustainable lifestyle/development style? Yes. Is that the point of all (or even most) hackathons? No.