I love the idea that a hackathon is a more supportive environment for learning than the typical school or even home. However, I urge those who are learning to code at hackathons to take the time afterwards to more comprehensively understand the concepts you picked up in the rushed environment of a hackathon. Rushed learning can result in some serious deficiencies and gaps in knowledge that will be an impediment to future productivity.

I think the biggest bottleneck by far in this space is getting people inspired to learn. More than it being rushed learning or comprehensive learning, the biggest benefit hackathons have is to get people learning to begin with :)

not to mention the great community that springs up out of it!

Agreed. Hackathons are a great supplement to accelerate learning, but anyone who wants to build decent products needs to learn things the right way at some point.

Not so sure. I like learning at a pace in which I'm really understanding the technologies that I'm picking up. For PennApps, we do a series of tech talks over the course the week before the hackathon, and I encourage students who don't know how to code to attend those talks. I think "learning" at a hackathon can leave a lot of gaps in knowledge, which is not necessarily terrible but not the strategy I would immediately advise.

I think the hackathon is more for helping people dive in and go from 0 to something. After that, learning more comprehensively is definitely crucial.

Trying to get new people to come to hackathons is why we started CodeDay.

It's actually an extremely effective way to give new people a wide basing in computer science and, more importantly, get them excited.

I'd love to see more marketing to new people in regards to hackathons.

With MHacks, one of our main focuses was to bring in students who had never been to a hackathon before. There's honestly not a better vehicle that I've seen for getting students pumped about CS.

It surprises me that organizations like Code.org don't take advantage of hackathons to spread their message.

Why hasn't this happened yet?

check out www.tjhackathon.com. We're planning on expanding to various locations to do just that.

Code.org so far has just been a bunch of big names putting their name on something to make noise. Very little real change from what I've seen.

Obviously there are gaps in what you can learn at a hackathon. You guys need to stop beating the point there. However, provide a situation in which you can learn as much as you do so quickly as you do at a hackathon, and I guarantee you can't.

Hackathons have changed my life. It is what took me to the next level in my coding ability, it helped me find out what I was passionate about, and I met some of the coolest people I have ever met.

would you have been in CS without hackathons though?

hackathons are like gyms