What is a hackathon

[Siraaj Khandkar]

On 1/29/14 11:20 PM, Mark Saad wrote:
> All
>  I know this may sound like a silly question but I wanted to get a broad opinion on this.
> My "friends" job announced then would be having a company hackathon, where groups would be
> formed and each group would be given 16 hrs to design and build a project to do stuff.
> There would be winners and looser and prizes given out.  Is this a hackathon or
> something else ?
> 
> 
> His initial reaction when he was told about this was; "This isn't a hackathon, I am not sure what this is ?"
> The organizer said "what do you think a hackathon is?"  He said ... its a collaborative effort, with a common goal 
> designed quickly help a project as needed; usually short and rapidly paced. 
> 
> 
> So anyway what do you all think, is this a hackathon or something else. 
>

Ideally, I think that

Hackathon:
    Hacking for solid, uninterrupted chunks of time in a shared space.
    Maybe loose, but nonetheless common, general motivation.

Programming contest:
    Teams building competing solutions to a given problem during a
    limited time. There are winners, losers and prizes.

In practice, people just don't care and call any coding event a
"hackathon". So your "friend" is correct and his company is consistent :)