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ThePhysicist 16 hours ago [-]
Congrats Sonali, Nick, Dave & everyone else! I had an incredible time with you all in NY more than 10 years ago, it was so cool, and I'm still thinking of it very fondly. Spent my days hacking away in the space near Canal Street and the nights and weekends exploring NYC with other Recursers, visiting museums, parks and venturing out to buy cheap dumplings by the dozen. I was quite poor back then but I enjoyed my life so much, had a tiny room at the Kolping house on the Upper East Side which was very run down and tiny but also very cheap, basically just went there for sleeping and spent every other minute in the space and outside. No distractions, no possessions beyond my laptop, no responsibilities, simple but happy times. And then in 2021 I found my dream job at DuckDuckGo through RC, been working there for almost five years now! Thanks for everything and great to see it's still going strong!
mnky9800n 12 hours ago [-]
I loved my time at RC. It changed me a lot. I wrote several blog posts about different projects and my time during my batch. I would strongly suggest applying if you like computers and want to talk about them constantly while building cool stuff.
I like the definition of social rules [0]. I also wonder whether the roof rule was written preemptively or retrospectively -- I hope the former.
I have my own thanks to give to HN. It's connected me to interesting people, online and IRL. It's led to some very strong friendships. It's led me to multiple job opportunities, and usually the better ones. It's changing of course, but I've had a great time in this community so far, and that deserves thanks.
I'm surprised by the "you are not allowed to be surprised, ever" rule. It puts me off of recurse entirely.
I shouldn't even need to explain why as it should be self-evident that policing/banning a completely natural and sometimes highly beneficial emotion/reaction is beyond problematic.
It seems like an XY problem - they implemented it to solve a genuine problem, without understanding the problem.
Like, the canonical example they give is
> Dan: What’s the command line?
> Carol: Wait, you’ve never used the command line?
Surely everyone can imagine at least two versions of Carol.
1. Condescending and dismissive. Indeed, that's not behaviour anyone should be tolerating.
2. Thrilled to be able to introduce someone to something new. She might follow that question up with "oh come on over here, let me show you! This will change your life." and proceed to try to teach terminal stuff. Isn't this the best sort of teacher, someone who is infectiously passionate about something?
Dan may still respond negatively to Carol2, but that's Dan's problem - he needs a therapist of some sort to address whatever insecurities he has.
Now, you might say "The rule is about FEIGNED surprise", which is Carol1. But it explicitly says
> When someone acts surprised when you don’t know something, it doesn’t matter whether they’re pretending to be surprised or actually surprised.
Then goes on to describe the version of Dan that needs therapy
> The effect is the same: the next time you have a question, you’re more likely to keep your mouth shut. An accurate name for this rule would be no acting surprised when someone doesn’t know something,
No, that's not how I or any other well-adjusted person would react.
A better name for the rule is "don't be a dick. Everyone is here to help each other learn and grow" (and there might be a separate rule/policy/resource about how people who have not yet learned how to positively and productively control their emotions - which I am not denigrating, simply pointing out reality - can seek assistance with that as well).
In the end, IT DEPENDS. But there's apparently no room for such nuance at Recurse...
dxdm 5 hours ago [-]
There's no rule against being surprised, and especially not against _ever_ being surprised. They are asking people not to express surprise, real or not, when responding to a question, as a courtesy to the person asking. Like: Keep your surprise in check in situations when it's not helping.
I don't think that's too much to ask, just like it's generally considered preferable to not chew with your mouth open when in company, or talk to people with food in your mouth.
They even acknowledge that they expect these rules to not be followed all the time.
I'm surprised that you read it as a general prohibition of being surprised. ;)
Edit: Sorry, wrote my reply before I saw your substantial edits where you clarify your position and distinguish between "positive" and "negative" surprise. I agree there's a better way express surprise. The rule clearly wants people to avoid putting other people down by creating a feeling of "wow, how can you not know this". That's the spirit of the rule, and I guess it could be expressed better. I don't think they'd have a problem if someone managed to turn the surprise into a positive, but to do that, it's good to be mindful that it's often perceived negatively.
nchmy 4 hours ago [-]
Sorry for the ninja edits. Writing from phone and didn't think there'd be people replying right away.
Seems like we're in agreement. But I reiterate that it's not a good rule if it should be regularly broken, for the good.
Thus, for a project that's been around for seemingly a very long time, it's hard to imagine that they haven't had ample time and feedback to vastly improve the wording of it all. Thus, they seem to be content that it expresses exactly what they want it to.
dxdm 3 hours ago [-]
I don't think that the rule should regularly be broken. That's not what they say, and it's not what they mean. The strongest interpretation is: err on the side of not acting surprised at people's questions, because it tends to put people off asking them.
I do think you're simply reading their rule in a way that's not intended by them. Could the rule be written to convey the intent more clearly? Yes, I think so. Is it only their own responsibility how the rule is interpreted? No, I don't think so.
The hacker news guidelines ask us to:
> respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
This is good advice in general. It is your choice to pick an the interpretation that you disagree with the strongest, and subsequently use it to condemn them: "puts me off entirely", "no room for nuance", and (paraphrasing:) it's on them to prevent me from interpreting the rule in the most severe way.
No. The spirit of the rule is clear. The nuance is there. What you do with it, that is all you.
zahlman 3 hours ago [-]
> I do think you're simply reading their rule in a way that's not intended by them.
I share a similar apprehension, although it's hard to put into words exactly. Across the entire document, really. Like, it's clearly well intended, and not too bad of a match for things I would advocate myself. But at the same time it's suggestive of an impossibly high standard, and I have trauma from seeing "standards that can be interpreted as impossibly high" being applied inconsistently.
Especially the concept of "no subtle -isms": too often have I seen one side of a discussion accused of "-isms" they couldn't understand, while "-isms" they found more sympathetic/obvious went unnoticed. (That's, er, tangentially related to how I ended up making an account here in the first place.)
nchmy 1 hours ago [-]
Yes, agreed. The document is dripping with red flags - I only called out the surprise rule, but could have criticized the rest.
It may very well be a wonderful environment there, but I wouldn't be even slightly surprised if people get accused of improper behaviour that either didn't even happen, or the vast majority of the world would be perfectly in support of.
nchmy 1 hours ago [-]
Agreed - the rule does not say, nor do they mean that the rule should be broken regularly. I was saying that because it is true, because it's not a good rule as written.
Once again, I'm reading (and quoting!) the rules exactly as wrttien by them.
> it doesn’t matter whether they’re pretending to be surprised or actually surprised
Moreover, like the sibling to this comment, I take exception to the entire document but didn't bother to expound on the rest.
Another particularly concerning excerpt
> You should not be afraid of breaking a social rule. These are things that everyone does, and breaking one doesn’t make you a bad person. If someone says, "hey, you just feigned surprise," or "that’s subtly sexist," don’t worry. Just apologize, reflect for a second, and move on.
Once again, no room for nuance, discussion etc. If someone concludes that you've broken a rule, shut up and apologize. Don't dare ask how/why, let alone disagree and try to start a discussion about the topic.
This is an environment in which professional victims/sociopaths could thrive. I've been baselessly accused many times of racism and sexism in places like this, which is not only laughable if you knew the context, but the other parties are the ones who weaponize their false victimhood in order to be sexist and racist (and corrupt).
It may very well be a wonderful environment there. But the rules, as written, seem like they're better suited to some sort of trauma-recovery facility, where everyone is enormously fragile and it is therefore extremely prudent to err egregiously on the side of "safety". But that, of course, is by definition not a healthy environment.
Once again, it would be simple to re-write or, perhaps better, replace the rules such that you don't need such ambiguity, nuance, explanations, debate etc... I already did it for one. Another such modification would just be a simple "no politics or religion" rule, which is common in hostels worldwide. Instead the opt-in rule for such topics just invites a mess.
They evidently want the rules to be as they are at this point.
pjg1 35 minutes ago [-]
> 2. Thrilled to be able to introduce someone to something new. She might follow that question up with "oh come on over here, let me show you! This will change your life." and proceed to try to teach terminal stuff. Isn't this the best sort of teacher, someone who is infectiously passionate about something?
I wouldn't expect an infectiously passionate person to start their sentence with "wait you don't know this" and instead say "let me show you!" immediately.
This rule helps me differentiate between people who are genuinely trying to help v/s those who's primary motive is to show off and then maybe help.
applfanboysbgon 5 hours ago [-]
> In the end, IT DEPENDS. But there's apparently no room for such nuance at Recurse...
"One thing that often surprises people about the social rules is that we expect people to break them from time to time."
Sounds like there's plenty of room for nuance. They're guidelines. That you spent several paragraphs considering and articulating the difference between a positive social interaction and a negative one means the guideline is probably a good one, even if they didn't bother to write several paragraphs of nuance for each point themselves (which is perfectly reasonable, because brevity has its own value).
---
Rate-limit edit:
> That they haven't done so in 15+ years suggests that they think the rule is well-written.
Or it suggests they know more about what social problems actually arise in their community. Your 'vastly better' suggestion of "Don't be a dick" is so vague as to be a completely meaningless guideline, and someone reading that could easily end up doing the condescending surprise act without thinking they're a dick. The purpose of the rule is to call attention to a specific behavior they likely see often to make you think twice about it.
nchmy 4 hours ago [-]
But the fact remains that the rule is terrible. It's not about whether they tolerate transgressions (they'd better). Its that the rule SHOULD BE broken, regularly. If a rule should be regularly broken, it's not a good rule.
I wrote a brief alternative that serves vastly better and doesn't need paragraphs of nuanced explanation, and I didn't even put much thought into it.
That they haven't done so in 15+ years suggests that they think the rule is well-written.
ghostly_s 16 hours ago [-]
> I also wonder whether the roof rule was written preemptively or retrospectively -- I hope the former.
Presume you're referring to [1], not the page you linked, and one might be inclined to accuse you of __feigning surprise__ but if not: using the roof is a quite common expectation in mid-rise buildings in big cities like NY, though not usually in a building you don't yourself own/lease in.
Why would you think they are talking about an entirely different page and topic?
sincerely 10 hours ago [-]
Well there is no “roof rule” on the page they linked
serial_dev 7 hours ago [-]
It might have been AutoCorrect, and the “social rules” the original comment makes hundred times more sense that way
dxdm 5 hours ago [-]
The social rules page links to the code of conduct, which contains a rule about the roof. The most sensible interpretation to me is that OP wanted to comment on both, possibly forgetting that they had to follow a link to the roof rule, or maybe actively considering both pages to be a single unit.
That would be the"strongest interpretation" of OPs comment, which the local guidelines prefer us to respond to.
zahlman 3 hours ago [-]
I can't imagine what word might have been autocorrected to "roof" that would make more sense here.
amelius 4 hours ago [-]
I wonder if they have a rule on using AI and what their general stance is there.
ayewo 3 hours ago [-]
They do. It’s a reasonable stance [1] that is aptly captured by this quote:
“I doubt very much if it is possible to teach anyone to understand anything, that is to say, to see how various parts of it relate to all the other parts, to have a model of the structure in one’s mind. We can give other people names, and lists, but we cannot give them our mental structures; they must build their own.” — John Holt
How did you connect with people from hn and made irl friendships with them?
flockonus 15 hours ago [-]
At first i found odd that pricing is nowhere in the website, but then i found it burried under FAQ (free!) - is it to weed out people who are focusing on free rather than going deeper into the experience?
> How much does attending the Recurse Center cost?
> RC is free for everyone. You will never receive a bill from RC.
> How can you afford to make RC free?
> RC has a built in recruiting agency. Companies pay to hire RC alumni. This payment never comes out of your salary.
nicholasjbs 14 hours ago [-]
Yes, we want people to be making an intentional choice to come to RC, and not just to do it because it's free, so we don't lead with that. Our hope is that people will get excited about the idea, and then be pleasantly surprised when they discover that it's completely free.
(While we don't like to lead with being free, we also don't mean to completely bury that fact -- e.g., we do have it on the front page, albeit at the very bottom. Perhaps we should make this a little more prominent. Thanks for the feedback!)
hack1312 11 hours ago [-]
I really like this idea, but I’m not clear how the logistics work out. It’s “free” but 1.5 - 3 months in NYC is not cheap and would mean carrying double rent for that period of time on top of living expenses. Is there financial assistance or are participants expected to cover all of their own costs? If so doesn’t that make this only accessible to those quite well off already? That is, those who can afford to take off 1.5-3 months while covering the cost of living in one of the most expensive cities in the world. I see there’s a remote option but the in-person aspect of this really feels key to the experience.
Really not trying to be a spoil sport because the idea is incredible and worthwhile but I couldn’t find the answers looking at your website.
kraken_cult 11 hours ago [-]
I think it's more for folks who were making ~150k starting in 2012-2018. Most of them can afford to keep a place in new york and take a sabbatical.
larodi 9 hours ago [-]
So, tis for leets, not for folks…
artisinal 8 hours ago [-]
It might have been more successful in a lower cost of living state.
> I see there’s a remote option but the in-person aspect of this really feels key to the experience.
pjg1 2 hours ago [-]
I've been part of RC community entirely remotely for a few years, and have no intentions of going to the hub yet. Being at the hub might be a better overall experience, but a remote batch alone was life-changing for me, so the mindset and principles can be very much felt and experienced online too. It takes more effort, but it is possible.
zahlman 3 hours ago [-]
Personally I'd be interested in trying it remotely, but I don't have a webcam and don't really want to transmit my voice or image over the Internet.
fcjr 11 hours ago [-]
My time at RC has genuinely changed my life. I joined my first batch expecting to dust some rust off after being in management at my last gig, and found a community I will cherish for the rest of my life!
If you looking for community in tech I can't think of a better place.
To 15 more!
tracerbulletx 15 hours ago [-]
Hadn't heard of this before but its a cool idea. I often take my own little "programming retreats" and go to another city for a week and work out of a nice coworking space for a sense of focus and engagement with my work.
maxmynter95 1 hours ago [-]
Thanks Nick and Sonali (and Dave, though I didn’t meet you),
I did RC last year and it was easily one of the Most influential periods of my life!
I can‘t find words to do my gratitude justice for the work you‘re doing.
Best wishes and Happy Birthday RC
— max, Sp2 25
dgellow 17 hours ago [-]
I had the chance to work with a bunch of Recurse alumni over the past 4 years, they have all been amazing, brilliant engineers and overall great people :)
anonu 3 hours ago [-]
First off, congrats. This sounds incredibly fulfilling on many levels.
Second, I'm curious how your business changes with AI coding tools. I would wager humans will seek out your offering in greater numbers.
zahlman 3 hours ago [-]
By my read of the intended culture, it shouldn't really change anything within the RC experience itself. The "social rules" are such that enthusiasts and skeptics should be able to work side by side, and show each other things they can learn from. Just like with any other technology.
Thanks for making Recurse so awesome Nick, and it was great running into you at demo day.
I learned so much and made great friends at my six weeks in Brooklyn.
Without Recurse Center I probably wouldn't have made it into YC with a startup of my own today. Long live RC!
jagged-chisel 2 hours ago [-]
I’m not sure I understand Recurse. Self-directed self-improvement. “Attending remotely” is even more self-directed.
Ok, so Recurse is providing accountability partners or something similar?
How is Recurse making money? I don’t see a pricing or tuition page.
NetOpWibby 16 hours ago [-]
I wish something like Recurse existed in Cupertino, I've always admired the program. Congrats on this milestone, most HN alumni don't make it past a decade.
fragmede 14 hours ago [-]
It's very far from the same thing, but there's Hacker Dojo in Mountain View if you're looking for people irl to meet up with.
voidsnax 13 hours ago [-]
While I'm still waiting for the right moment in my own life to do my own Recurse Center retreat, I have had the pleasure of hiring and working with several RC alums over the years and in every instance have found them to be high-quality developers and interesting people to boot. Big congrats to RC for 15 years!
Abishek_Muthian 5 hours ago [-]
Can you tell us what why "OkCupid for jobs" failed?
I run a problem validation platform and 'OkCupid for jobs'[1] is consistently the most visited need-gap in the platform.
Not OP, but I was an early employee at a startup that pivoted into this market. The short answer is that you need to do what large-scale enterprise customers want you to do (because that's where the money is). To do that, you need a predictable pipeline that delivers X applications for Y money. One way to achieve that is to get into managing traffic from the big job boards. What we did in the early days was figure out how we can optimize client's sourcing budget to get the most applicants.
We tried "Tinder for jobs" or some bs like that and just couldn't build business around that. Because in the end of the day, you'll end up building a platform that has to compete with Indeed and other established players.
nonameiguess 4 hours ago [-]
Beats me what it's become, but OkCupid at the outset and probably still by 2010 was about estimating compatibility based on the results of quizzes taken by both parties. To improve results beyond OkCupid's built-in romantic personality types, you could submit your own quizzes or general questions, with results expected to get better the more questions in common both parties had answered. I don't completely remember, but I think you could even specify your own answer and an ideal match's answer separately.
To me, the problems here are reasonably obvious. It works well enough provided the applicant pools are sufficiently small and both parties are honest. Even then, the point of OkCupid or any other dating service is just to get people to meet. Whether they end up in any kind of multi-year contractual relationship akin to getting a job is going to be extremely rare. You'd have to ask them if they even tracked it, but 1 marriage in 10,000 90%+ matches wouldn't surprise me as even an upper bound. Jobs aren't quite as serious as marriage, but still more serious than agreeing to meet for drinks.
It's hard to see how you'd improve on the existing system of posting requisitions and applications. monster.com, indeed.com, whatever else has ever existed are seemingly already a dating service for jobs. Making it specifically "OkCupid for jobs" implies you have some kind of questionnaire-based compatibility estimator that is based on at least as much research as romantic compatibility, and I don't think that kind of research exists, and that the parties be at least as honest as those on OkCupid, which I also don't think will happen. I know the popular imagination is everyone lies on a dating service, but I don't think that's true. They exaggerate, but people will place in their search filters that they really do prefer a particular race, age range, socio-economic status, things that employers aren't legally allowed to admit to. That's aside from the principal/agent split in job requisitions that doesn't exist in dating. At least messaging someone on a dating service you can be reasonably well-assured the person who is claiming to know what they want is the person you'll be matching with. For a job, the requisitions are generic, not matched to a specific team or manager, so compatibility is even more spotty. A job seeker may be perfectly compatible with most teams in an organization, but still not appear to be with the organization itself, which usually expects to be able to move candidates between teams. Imagine a dating service where instead of having to convince a girl to go to prom with you, you have to instead match against her parents first, who have six daughters, might pair you with any of them, and base their own evaluations on a mix of what they believe is required and a stereotype of what they think teenage girls like.
The problems aren't as alike as they superficially appear.
vugar82 6 hours ago [-]
Congratulations on 15 years! Recurse Center has had an incredible impact on the programming community. Thanks for investing in people instead of just chasing growth. Here's to many more years!
saulpw 16 hours ago [-]
RC is a great community and I will be forever grateful to them for introducing me to several good friends that are still in my life 10 years later.
vnce 10 hours ago [-]
I just love that this exists. Learning about it for the first time here, it was such a joy reading the website, watching the videos and understanding the school’s philosophy. Even how they define what a successful applicant looks like, and commitment to diversity brought a smile to my face. Maybe one day…
shepherdjerred 15 hours ago [-]
Ah! I so wanted to go to the recurse center when I was between jobs, but I was too nervous to push my start date back a significant amount. I really hope I can do it one day. It sounds so awesome!
FanaHOVA 11 hours ago [-]
Congrats!! I remember growing up in Italy and really really wanting to attend Hacker School but couldn’t afford to. It resonated a lot with me and make me want to keep learning; I am sure you are still having that impact on others today, it’s great to see it’s still around!
atherton94027 13 hours ago [-]
Congrats! I'd be curious to hear what changed (and what didn't) with applicants over the last 15 years.
I feel like the programming community is very different than in the early 2010s – when's the last time you've seen a coworker brag about using vim – but I can't really put my finger on what changed exactly.
kevinfiol 11 hours ago [-]
> when's the last time you've seen a coworker brag about using vim
Are you suggesting these people have increased or decreased in quantity? I feel like I've met more vim/neovim/tmux/theprimagen/tool-rewritten-in-rust geeks with every new job.
gsinclair 12 hours ago [-]
I resemble that remark!
knuckleheads 4 hours ago [-]
Congrats! I very much enjoyed my time at Recurse Center back when it was Hacker School and idly daydream about returning some time. Thanks for making something so great!
joao 16 hours ago [-]
Congratulations! From time to time I visit your website and consider applying when between jobs but never did. Might try this year :)
guessmyname 15 hours ago [-]
I attended a Recurse Center batch, and while I understand that others had amazing experiences, mine was quite bland.
I can't blame anyone but myself for this.
Most of the other attendees were intelligent or highly self-motivated, or both. Many people seemed to connect instantly, forming small work groups, sharing project ideas, and even going out for lunch or dinner together. They were constantly talking about how awesome Zulip was (is?) [*] and engaged in a constant stick-measuring contest to see whose weekly project would make it to Hacker News’ top 30. At times, it felt like I had joined some sort of mini-cult. I know it wasn’t like that at all; it was just the visuals from an outsider in a completely different culture. As far as I can remember, people were very friendly, willing to help others whenever they were stuck, and happy to study and tackle challenging problems together. There were lots of learnings floating around the working space. Sadly, it didn’t work for me at all, and years later, I still don’t know why exactly.
Perhaps it was the fast pace of New York City and SoHo itself? Or the rudeness of passersby, especially the police officers who couldn’t be bothered even if I just wanted to ask for directions? Or the dirtiness of the streets? The constant noise from cars honking all the time? The strange people in the Subway? The ubiquitous unhealthy food at every corner? Healthy food was difficult to find, at least for someone new to the city, and when accessible, it was unaffordable. Multiple times, I found myself working in the Recurse Center workspace with an empty stomach, which obviously exacerbated the bad experiences, but I can’t even complain about that because they often had free pizza (once, twice a week?) but obviously, pizza is unhealthy, so I never accepted.
Overall, I had a very bad experience, but I believe nothing was Recurse Center’s fault; it was mine. I’m not entirely sure what I expected when I joined, but I hope this serves as a warning to future attendees to prepare themselves before joining, especially if you are not familiar with American culture, and particularly with New York.
[*] https://zulip.com(years later, I still don’t understand why people love Zulip so much)
namanyayg 15 hours ago [-]
I respect your opinion and experience, but FWIW for the readers, I had the completely opposite experience.
The batch did divide into groups. Some people were learning functional programming, others focused on Transformers architecture, while yet others on dynamic programming. But I quickly found a small group of people who were building things that I was interested in, games and AI applications.
In the unstructured time I was able to set my own goals, ship a lot, write a lot, and give a lot of talks on topics that are very interesting to me.
I didn't expect or get any free food from the Recurse Centre -- I was in New York, I had the world's cuisines available to me. I often went on lunch along with other RC members to reasonably affordable places within walking distance.
RC is not a college course with exams and a fixed syllabus -- It was unstructured and self-directed -- and that's what made it so special.
ghaff 13 hours ago [-]
New York is... New York. I've spent a lot of time there, and even lived there for a summer. I was at a board meeting down there recently and a new young ex officio member basically asked "How do people deal with the confusion?" It is what it is. And it used to be worse.
jcmorrow 14 hours ago [-]
I know one or two other people who have similar feelings to you (bland experience, wish they had connected more with the people). That is why in my advice for people considering Recurse Center (https://jcmorrow.com/recurse/) I encourage people not to come in too attached to a project.
nicholasjbs 14 hours ago [-]
I'm not sure who you are, but I'm sorry that RC was a bad experience for you. I appreciate your sharing your experience so respectfully, and I hope you've since found other communities or opportunities that are better a better fit for you!
fragmede 13 hours ago [-]
The competitors to Zulip are Slack and Discord, maybe Matrix/IRC. The question is how do you group subjects and sub-subjects aka threading and Zulip forces the user to pick both explicitly. This results in an easier to follow conversation. Eg in the 3d printing channel there's a modeling thread and a filament thread, so if you want to see stuff about filaments, you don't see the conversation about modeling unless you specifically go over to that thread. Meanwhile, Slack's threads are part of the channel, so you can go into a channel, post a message, and half the conversation is in the channel itself, and half the conversation is in a thread. So you're forced to read all of slack to keep up with the conversation. At the end of the day, it's about signal to noise, and Zulip's UX raises signal.
mnky9800n 12 hours ago [-]
I never thought about it this way but this is true. But why can’t you delete things?
golly_ned 10 hours ago [-]
Everyone I’ve met personally who attended RC was insufferable. Condescending to the point they couldn’t disguise their contempt for people who they thought knew less. So extreme to the point they simply refused to learn from other people. One even literally bullied a teammate to tears.
zahlman 3 hours ago [-]
That sounds like the opposite of what they expect from each other…
kuanbutts 16 hours ago [-]
Thanks RC! I went back when it was Hacker School! Grateful that period of my life - grew so much!
pm90 15 hours ago [-]
Some of the best engineers I worked at got their start in programming at the recurse center... thank you for the good you've done in this world!
wxw 12 hours ago [-]
Recurse is an incredible community. Thanks for everything you’ve done for the NYC and broader tech ecosystem!
zallarak 13 hours ago [-]
You guys changed many lives including my own.
hahahaa 10 hours ago [-]
Will you consider franchising or expanding to other countries?
inferhaven 6 hours ago [-]
Love to see someone having success and fulfilling their dreams, congratz!
kaikai 10 hours ago [-]
I’m really grateful for the time I spent at the recurse center! Thank you for all the work that goes into making such a special community.
thierrydamiba 16 hours ago [-]
Awesome story, thanks for sharing!
bubulovegod 11 hours ago [-]
congratulation! i first time know this. and i am curious what RC is like for remote participant? also, i would like to apply!
I've also attended RC remotely, so happy to answer any specific questions
jdorfman 13 hours ago [-]
HN wouldn’t be HN without Dang. Thank you Dang.
imantaba 7 hours ago [-]
Congrats
Uptrenda 15 hours ago [-]
Never heard of recurse before but what a charming idea. Seems like you've found something amazing to do in life. Wholesome posts like OP are much welcome in tech. Updooted.
8 hours ago [-]
j45 14 hours ago [-]
Congrats, helping people improve their lives and for their loved ones has its own return.
https://www.lowimpactfruit.com/p/rainy-citycom-a-side-projec...
https://www.lowimpactfruit.com/p/zork-bench-an-llm-reasoning...
https://www.lowimpactfruit.com/p/my-return-statement
I have my own thanks to give to HN. It's connected me to interesting people, online and IRL. It's led to some very strong friendships. It's led me to multiple job opportunities, and usually the better ones. It's changing of course, but I've had a great time in this community so far, and that deserves thanks.
0: https://www.recurse.com/social-rules
I shouldn't even need to explain why as it should be self-evident that policing/banning a completely natural and sometimes highly beneficial emotion/reaction is beyond problematic.
It seems like an XY problem - they implemented it to solve a genuine problem, without understanding the problem.
Like, the canonical example they give is
> Dan: What’s the command line?
> Carol: Wait, you’ve never used the command line?
Surely everyone can imagine at least two versions of Carol.
1. Condescending and dismissive. Indeed, that's not behaviour anyone should be tolerating.
2. Thrilled to be able to introduce someone to something new. She might follow that question up with "oh come on over here, let me show you! This will change your life." and proceed to try to teach terminal stuff. Isn't this the best sort of teacher, someone who is infectiously passionate about something?
Dan may still respond negatively to Carol2, but that's Dan's problem - he needs a therapist of some sort to address whatever insecurities he has.
Now, you might say "The rule is about FEIGNED surprise", which is Carol1. But it explicitly says
> When someone acts surprised when you don’t know something, it doesn’t matter whether they’re pretending to be surprised or actually surprised.
Then goes on to describe the version of Dan that needs therapy
> The effect is the same: the next time you have a question, you’re more likely to keep your mouth shut. An accurate name for this rule would be no acting surprised when someone doesn’t know something,
No, that's not how I or any other well-adjusted person would react.
A better name for the rule is "don't be a dick. Everyone is here to help each other learn and grow" (and there might be a separate rule/policy/resource about how people who have not yet learned how to positively and productively control their emotions - which I am not denigrating, simply pointing out reality - can seek assistance with that as well).
In the end, IT DEPENDS. But there's apparently no room for such nuance at Recurse...
I don't think that's too much to ask, just like it's generally considered preferable to not chew with your mouth open when in company, or talk to people with food in your mouth.
They even acknowledge that they expect these rules to not be followed all the time.
I'm surprised that you read it as a general prohibition of being surprised. ;)
Edit: Sorry, wrote my reply before I saw your substantial edits where you clarify your position and distinguish between "positive" and "negative" surprise. I agree there's a better way express surprise. The rule clearly wants people to avoid putting other people down by creating a feeling of "wow, how can you not know this". That's the spirit of the rule, and I guess it could be expressed better. I don't think they'd have a problem if someone managed to turn the surprise into a positive, but to do that, it's good to be mindful that it's often perceived negatively.
Seems like we're in agreement. But I reiterate that it's not a good rule if it should be regularly broken, for the good.
Thus, for a project that's been around for seemingly a very long time, it's hard to imagine that they haven't had ample time and feedback to vastly improve the wording of it all. Thus, they seem to be content that it expresses exactly what they want it to.
I do think you're simply reading their rule in a way that's not intended by them. Could the rule be written to convey the intent more clearly? Yes, I think so. Is it only their own responsibility how the rule is interpreted? No, I don't think so.
The hacker news guidelines ask us to:
> respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
This is good advice in general. It is your choice to pick an the interpretation that you disagree with the strongest, and subsequently use it to condemn them: "puts me off entirely", "no room for nuance", and (paraphrasing:) it's on them to prevent me from interpreting the rule in the most severe way.
No. The spirit of the rule is clear. The nuance is there. What you do with it, that is all you.
I share a similar apprehension, although it's hard to put into words exactly. Across the entire document, really. Like, it's clearly well intended, and not too bad of a match for things I would advocate myself. But at the same time it's suggestive of an impossibly high standard, and I have trauma from seeing "standards that can be interpreted as impossibly high" being applied inconsistently.
Especially the concept of "no subtle -isms": too often have I seen one side of a discussion accused of "-isms" they couldn't understand, while "-isms" they found more sympathetic/obvious went unnoticed. (That's, er, tangentially related to how I ended up making an account here in the first place.)
It may very well be a wonderful environment there, but I wouldn't be even slightly surprised if people get accused of improper behaviour that either didn't even happen, or the vast majority of the world would be perfectly in support of.
Once again, I'm reading (and quoting!) the rules exactly as wrttien by them.
> it doesn’t matter whether they’re pretending to be surprised or actually surprised
Moreover, like the sibling to this comment, I take exception to the entire document but didn't bother to expound on the rest.
Another particularly concerning excerpt
> You should not be afraid of breaking a social rule. These are things that everyone does, and breaking one doesn’t make you a bad person. If someone says, "hey, you just feigned surprise," or "that’s subtly sexist," don’t worry. Just apologize, reflect for a second, and move on.
Once again, no room for nuance, discussion etc. If someone concludes that you've broken a rule, shut up and apologize. Don't dare ask how/why, let alone disagree and try to start a discussion about the topic.
This is an environment in which professional victims/sociopaths could thrive. I've been baselessly accused many times of racism and sexism in places like this, which is not only laughable if you knew the context, but the other parties are the ones who weaponize their false victimhood in order to be sexist and racist (and corrupt).
It may very well be a wonderful environment there. But the rules, as written, seem like they're better suited to some sort of trauma-recovery facility, where everyone is enormously fragile and it is therefore extremely prudent to err egregiously on the side of "safety". But that, of course, is by definition not a healthy environment.
Once again, it would be simple to re-write or, perhaps better, replace the rules such that you don't need such ambiguity, nuance, explanations, debate etc... I already did it for one. Another such modification would just be a simple "no politics or religion" rule, which is common in hostels worldwide. Instead the opt-in rule for such topics just invites a mess.
They evidently want the rules to be as they are at this point.
I wouldn't expect an infectiously passionate person to start their sentence with "wait you don't know this" and instead say "let me show you!" immediately.
This rule helps me differentiate between people who are genuinely trying to help v/s those who's primary motive is to show off and then maybe help.
"One thing that often surprises people about the social rules is that we expect people to break them from time to time."
Sounds like there's plenty of room for nuance. They're guidelines. That you spent several paragraphs considering and articulating the difference between a positive social interaction and a negative one means the guideline is probably a good one, even if they didn't bother to write several paragraphs of nuance for each point themselves (which is perfectly reasonable, because brevity has its own value).
---
Rate-limit edit:
> That they haven't done so in 15+ years suggests that they think the rule is well-written.
Or it suggests they know more about what social problems actually arise in their community. Your 'vastly better' suggestion of "Don't be a dick" is so vague as to be a completely meaningless guideline, and someone reading that could easily end up doing the condescending surprise act without thinking they're a dick. The purpose of the rule is to call attention to a specific behavior they likely see often to make you think twice about it.
I wrote a brief alternative that serves vastly better and doesn't need paragraphs of nuanced explanation, and I didn't even put much thought into it.
That they haven't done so in 15+ years suggests that they think the rule is well-written.
Presume you're referring to [1], not the page you linked, and one might be inclined to accuse you of __feigning surprise__ but if not: using the roof is a quite common expectation in mid-rise buildings in big cities like NY, though not usually in a building you don't yourself own/lease in.
1. https://www.recurse.com/code-of-conduct
That would be the"strongest interpretation" of OPs comment, which the local guidelines prefer us to respond to.
“I doubt very much if it is possible to teach anyone to understand anything, that is to say, to see how various parts of it relate to all the other parts, to have a model of the structure in one’s mind. We can give other people names, and lists, but we cannot give them our mental structures; they must build their own.” — John Holt
1: https://www.recurse.com/blog/191-developing-our-position-on-...
> How much does attending the Recurse Center cost? > RC is free for everyone. You will never receive a bill from RC.
> How can you afford to make RC free? > RC has a built in recruiting agency. Companies pay to hire RC alumni. This payment never comes out of your salary.
(While we don't like to lead with being free, we also don't mean to completely bury that fact -- e.g., we do have it on the front page, albeit at the very bottom. Perhaps we should make this a little more prominent. Thanks for the feedback!)
Really not trying to be a spoil sport because the idea is incredible and worthwhile but I couldn’t find the answers looking at your website.
If you looking for community in tech I can't think of a better place.
To 15 more!
I did RC last year and it was easily one of the Most influential periods of my life! I can‘t find words to do my gratitude justice for the work you‘re doing.
Best wishes and Happy Birthday RC
— max, Sp2 25
Second, I'm curious how your business changes with AI coding tools. I would wager humans will seek out your offering in greater numbers.
Edit: Looks like there was better discussion of this already (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48956925).
I learned so much and made great friends at my six weeks in Brooklyn.
Without Recurse Center I probably wouldn't have made it into YC with a startup of my own today. Long live RC!
Ok, so Recurse is providing accountability partners or something similar?
How is Recurse making money? I don’t see a pricing or tuition page.
I run a problem validation platform and 'OkCupid for jobs'[1] is consistently the most visited need-gap in the platform.
Congratulations on 15 years of Recurse Center!
[1] https://needgap.com/problems/363?gift=Z2lmdHwzNjN8MTc4NDQ1Mz... (gift pass link valid for 24 hours).
We tried "Tinder for jobs" or some bs like that and just couldn't build business around that. Because in the end of the day, you'll end up building a platform that has to compete with Indeed and other established players.
To me, the problems here are reasonably obvious. It works well enough provided the applicant pools are sufficiently small and both parties are honest. Even then, the point of OkCupid or any other dating service is just to get people to meet. Whether they end up in any kind of multi-year contractual relationship akin to getting a job is going to be extremely rare. You'd have to ask them if they even tracked it, but 1 marriage in 10,000 90%+ matches wouldn't surprise me as even an upper bound. Jobs aren't quite as serious as marriage, but still more serious than agreeing to meet for drinks.
It's hard to see how you'd improve on the existing system of posting requisitions and applications. monster.com, indeed.com, whatever else has ever existed are seemingly already a dating service for jobs. Making it specifically "OkCupid for jobs" implies you have some kind of questionnaire-based compatibility estimator that is based on at least as much research as romantic compatibility, and I don't think that kind of research exists, and that the parties be at least as honest as those on OkCupid, which I also don't think will happen. I know the popular imagination is everyone lies on a dating service, but I don't think that's true. They exaggerate, but people will place in their search filters that they really do prefer a particular race, age range, socio-economic status, things that employers aren't legally allowed to admit to. That's aside from the principal/agent split in job requisitions that doesn't exist in dating. At least messaging someone on a dating service you can be reasonably well-assured the person who is claiming to know what they want is the person you'll be matching with. For a job, the requisitions are generic, not matched to a specific team or manager, so compatibility is even more spotty. A job seeker may be perfectly compatible with most teams in an organization, but still not appear to be with the organization itself, which usually expects to be able to move candidates between teams. Imagine a dating service where instead of having to convince a girl to go to prom with you, you have to instead match against her parents first, who have six daughters, might pair you with any of them, and base their own evaluations on a mix of what they believe is required and a stereotype of what they think teenage girls like.
The problems aren't as alike as they superficially appear.
I feel like the programming community is very different than in the early 2010s – when's the last time you've seen a coworker brag about using vim – but I can't really put my finger on what changed exactly.
Are you suggesting these people have increased or decreased in quantity? I feel like I've met more vim/neovim/tmux/theprimagen/tool-rewritten-in-rust geeks with every new job.
I can't blame anyone but myself for this.
Most of the other attendees were intelligent or highly self-motivated, or both. Many people seemed to connect instantly, forming small work groups, sharing project ideas, and even going out for lunch or dinner together. They were constantly talking about how awesome Zulip was (is?) [*] and engaged in a constant stick-measuring contest to see whose weekly project would make it to Hacker News’ top 30. At times, it felt like I had joined some sort of mini-cult. I know it wasn’t like that at all; it was just the visuals from an outsider in a completely different culture. As far as I can remember, people were very friendly, willing to help others whenever they were stuck, and happy to study and tackle challenging problems together. There were lots of learnings floating around the working space. Sadly, it didn’t work for me at all, and years later, I still don’t know why exactly.
Perhaps it was the fast pace of New York City and SoHo itself? Or the rudeness of passersby, especially the police officers who couldn’t be bothered even if I just wanted to ask for directions? Or the dirtiness of the streets? The constant noise from cars honking all the time? The strange people in the Subway? The ubiquitous unhealthy food at every corner? Healthy food was difficult to find, at least for someone new to the city, and when accessible, it was unaffordable. Multiple times, I found myself working in the Recurse Center workspace with an empty stomach, which obviously exacerbated the bad experiences, but I can’t even complain about that because they often had free pizza (once, twice a week?) but obviously, pizza is unhealthy, so I never accepted.
Overall, I had a very bad experience, but I believe nothing was Recurse Center’s fault; it was mine. I’m not entirely sure what I expected when I joined, but I hope this serves as a warning to future attendees to prepare themselves before joining, especially if you are not familiar with American culture, and particularly with New York.
[*] https://zulip.com (years later, I still don’t understand why people love Zulip so much)
The batch did divide into groups. Some people were learning functional programming, others focused on Transformers architecture, while yet others on dynamic programming. But I quickly found a small group of people who were building things that I was interested in, games and AI applications.
In the unstructured time I was able to set my own goals, ship a lot, write a lot, and give a lot of talks on topics that are very interesting to me.
I didn't expect or get any free food from the Recurse Centre -- I was in New York, I had the world's cuisines available to me. I often went on lunch along with other RC members to reasonably affordable places within walking distance.
RC is not a college course with exams and a fixed syllabus -- It was unstructured and self-directed -- and that's what made it so special.
I've also attended RC remotely, so happy to answer any specific questions