ImageJ

What is a hackathon?

In the context of ImageJ, a hackathon is a coding spree, or if you want, a one or two-week brainstorm session where scientists with programming skills sit together and work in a low-distraction, high-energy environment to advance the software side of their research. Typically, results get accomplished much faster (read: days instead of weeks or months) than without hackathons, because the setting is ideal to discuss advanced ideas with similar-thinking scientists and ideas can sprout much faster. Sometimes, results are achieved that would not have been possible without a hackathon at all.

{{#ev:youtube|ZDZvoJX3PDM|425|right|The "hackathon effect" in effect!}}

Why?

First and foremost, hackathons are fun. The participants like what they are working on, and rarely have the same opportunities to talk to and inspire each other about their ongoing research.

Also, hackathons are the perfect excuse to concentrate on a particular subject without distractions. A lot gets done at a hackathon (see right!).

Origin of the term hackathon

The term comes from the original meaning of hack, i.e. a clever and unforeseen way to use or improve a technical system.

It is not clear whether Sun's marketing team or OpenBSD were first, combining the words hack and marathon to form hackathon.

Ever since, OpenBSD held annual hackathons during which OpenBSD was improved in leaps and bounds.

In 2007, the first hackathon revolving around neuro-science was taking place at Janelia Farm. In a sense, it can be seen as the first Fiji hackathon, since Fiji was born in the wake of that hackathon, and probably would not have happened without it.

ImageJ hackathons

ImageJ has benefitted from many hackathons over the years:

ImageJ Hackathons
When	Where	Who	Topic
2007 Summer	Janelia Farm Ashburn, VA, USA	acardona, bene51, jefferis, hanchuan, dscho, mhl, StephanPreibisch, axtimwalde, rasband, Arnim Jenett, Julie Simpson, Torsten Rohlfing, Yuriy Mishchenko	Neuroscience
2008 Apr 21 - 2008 Apr 30	MPI-CBG Dresden, Germany	acardona, bene51, ysis, chalkie666, frederikfly, tinevez, dscho, mhl, StephanPreibisch, axtimwalde, Pavel Tomancak	Fiji
2008 Dec 8 - 2008 Dec 13	INI Zürich, Switzerland	?	Fiji
2009 Mar 23 - 2009 Apr 03	MPI-CBG Dresden, Germany	?	Segmentation
2010 Mar 14 - 2010 Mar 27	EMBL Heidelberg, Germany	acardona, axtimwalde, bene51, cmci, ctrueden, dscho, iarganda, larrylindsey, mhl, StephanPreibisch, tnargsirrah, vkaynig	Fiji
2011 Jan 27 - 2011 Feb 13	WID Madison, WI, USA	iarganda, paulbarber, acardona, bdezonia, arthuredelstein, afraser, frederikfly, grislis, tnargsirrah, hinerm, luisibanez, LeeKamentsky, larrylindsey, melissalinkert, mhl, tpietzsch, StephanPreibisch, ctrueden, axtimwalde, dscho, bene51, Kevin Eliceiri, Rick Lentz, Mark Rowley, Pavel Tomancak	Multidimensional visualization
2011 Dec 9 - 2011 Dec 19	MPI-CBG Dresden, Germany	jburel, Stephane-D, bdezonia, dietzc, mdoube, Fab14, frederikfly, hornm, chalkie666, tomka, alex-krull, melissalinkert, mhl, joshmoore, tpietzsch, StephanPreibisch, ctrueden, dscho, bene51, Fernando Carrilo, Kevin Eliceiri, Jiri Matas, Jurgen Mayer, Peter Pitrone, Pavel Tomancak	Interoperability
2012 Oct	Universität Konstanz Konstanz, Germany	hornm, dietzc, tpietzsch, dscho	KNIME+Fiji
2013 Jan 22 - 2013 Jan 25	LOCI Madison, WI, USA	thewtex, ctrueden, dscho, hinerm	SCIFIO ImageIO plugin
2013 Apr 14 - 2013 Apr 18	LOCI Madison, WI, USA	iarganda, dscho, ctrueden	Trainable Weka Segmentation
2013 Apr 27 - 2013 May 3	LOCI Madison, WI, USA	StephanPreibisch, tpietzsch, ctrueden, dscho, bdezonia, hinerm, grislis	ImgLib2
2013 Nov 14 - 2013 Nov 27	LOCI Madison, WI, USA	dietzc, dscho, ctrueden	KNIME+ImageJ
2014 Mar 4 - 2014 Mar 13	Universität Konstanz Konstanz, Germany	ctrueden, dscho, dietzc, hornm	ImageJ OPS
2014 Mar 11 - 2014 Mar 13	Heimathafen Wiesbaden, Germany	joshmoore, ctrueden	ImageJ-OMERO
2014 Mar 20 - 2014 Mar 21	LOCI Madison, WI, USA	jburel, pwalczysko, ctrueden	ImageJ-OMERO
2014 Jul 7 - 2014 Jul 10	LOCI Madison, WI, USA	marktsuchida, derakon, dscho, stuyvenberg, ctrueden, hinerm	Micro-Manager and OpenSPIM
2014 Sep 14 - 2014 Sep 18	LOCI Madison, WI, USA	dietzc, bnorthan, hinerm, ctrueden, apal4, yuminguw, awalter17, Ginger Pocock	ImageJ OPS + KNIME
2014 Oct 13 - 2014 Oct 17	LOCI Madison, WI, USA	tpietzsch, StephanPreibisch, axtimwalde, dscho, ctrueden, hinerm	ImgLib2

As you can see, in recent years ImageJ has trended toward smaller, more targeted hackathons, as we find them very focused!