x-post Wenderen's hackathon primer

[Manishearth]

https://wenderen.github.io/Hackathon-Primer/ by @wenderen is a pretty nice post. It was originally written to help coding newbies in our uni get involved in hackathons and understand how to win them, but it might be relevant for a larger audience if tweaked.

What say? @wenderen @bcoe

[ajnirp]

In the post I refer by name to a bunch of people the juniors in our uni probably either know or can easily get in touch with. This would need to be cleaned up before posting, I guess.

[bcoe]

@Manishearth @wenderen: one thing that would interest me, would be an article along the lines of:

structuring code for a Hackathon, there must be an interesting balance of hacking out code as fast as humanly possible, while maintaining enough structure to be able to build something complex quickly.

[ajnirp]

I don't really have a strong sense of how code should be structured in a hackathon - my style is usually to stick to the docs for the framework/language as closely as possible and build upon that. So I think this is a great theme, but I'm not if I know enough to be able to write a standalone article on it. @bcoe I could add to the above draft by touching on this topic, WDYT? Or would you prefer that "structuring code" be the main theme of the article?

[bcoe]

@wenderen I was mainly trying to think of a way to introduce more of a coding aspect to the article, another interesting approach might be framing the article around a single Hackathon.

Perhaps tell the story of the Hackathon you won, with tips, a coding sample or two, and an explanation of your motivations for entering Hackathons (why you think they're fun/beneficial). I think that could be a really fun read.

[ajnirp]

@bcoe Thanks for the clarification! I really like the idea of centering the article around a single hackathon with a focus on code. It would be more concise and more relevant to polyglotweekly than the original draft IMO

I'll get started and send you the new draft within a day.