HackTO: A Strange (for some folks, anyway) Way to Spend a Saturday

As I write this, there are about a hundred people gathered in a warehouse space — Freshbooks‘ new offices — in Toronto’s west end who’ve been there since 8:30 a.m. or so, and I am among them. They’re setting up laptops, connecting to wifi and firing up their software development tools.

They’re here for HackTO, a “hackfest” in which developers from Toronto and parts surrounding are challenged to write an app in a day. The apps they write are required to integrate with at least one of the services provided by the sponsors:

• Shopify (whom I’m representing, along with my coworker David Underwood)
• Atomic Reach
• Context.IO
• FreshBooks
• Idée
• SoundCloud
• TinEye
• Trendspottr
• Twilio
• YellowAPI

David and I just finished giving the attendees an overview of Shopify and the sort of apps you can write using the Shopify platform, and all the other sponsors will do the same during the opening presentations. Once these are done, the hackers will form teams and work on building their apps until the 5:00 p.m. deadline. The esteemed panel of judges will then award prizes based on what they believe are the best apps created today, and David and I will award a $500 Apple Store girt card to the app that makes the best use of Shopify.

It may seem odd to spend a Saturday afternoon working, but for many of us programming is more than just a way to pay the mortgage — it’s a calling and a passion.

I greatly doubt that people sell insurance or do people’s taxes as a hobby on the weekends, but like cooking, carpentry and a number of creative lines of work, programming is something that people do as both work and a hobby. I’ve spent many a happy weekend afternoon learning a new programming language, cobbling together multimedia programs for desktop computers or web apps or Xbox games or (more recently) iPhone/iPad apps in the same way some other hobbyist might build model airplanes or sketch buildings or try out a new recipe. That’s what these people are doing today, and as a bonus, their hobby may pay off in all sorts of ways, from learning something new to winning a prize to making some new contacts to getting hired.

Good luck, hackers: I salute you with a filet mignon on a flaming sword!