骇人听闻的画面

Heatmaps, Set Actions, Step Lines, the Tableau Start Page… What do all of these Tableau features have in common? They were all started as individual projects during a Tableau internal hackathon. Hackathons are part of Tableau’s culture, and have taken place every year since the early days of Tableau. They continue to be an exciting event for the entire development team. Everyone looks forward to them for a chance to brainstorm new ideas, new processes, or new collaborations.

热图，设置动作，步骤线，Tableau起始页……所有这些Tableau功能有什么共同之处？ 它们都是在Tableau内部黑客马拉松期间作为单独的项目启动的。 骇客马拉松是Tableau文化的一部分，并且自Tableau成立之初每年都举行。 对于整个开发团队而言，它们仍然是令人兴奋的事件。 每个人都期待着他们有机会集思广益新想法，新流程或新合作。

A Tableau hackathon is a time set aside where everyone can work on something of their own choosing relevant to Tableau. It could be to improve an internal process, to produce some tools, to try out a new language, or to add a new feature to Tableau itself.

Tableau黑客马拉松是一个预留时间，每个人都可以自行选择与Tableau相关的内容。 可能是为了改进内部流程，生产一些工具，尝试一种新语言或为Tableau本身添加新功能。

Surprising features that are currently in Tableau have originated as hacks from a hackathon. Some of our internal tools originated from them. There are many other benefits to having regular hackathons. Employees get to take a little time to learn a new skill or try out something different from their day-to-day responsibilities; people who normally don’t get to work together collaborate on a new idea; with everyone experimenting with new ideas, we build a sense of mission and cultivate innovation.

Tableau当前具有令人惊讶的功能，它们起源于黑客马拉松。 我们的一些内部工具源于它们。 定期举办黑客马拉松还有很多其他好处。 员工可以花一些时间来学习新技能或尝试不同于他们日常职责的事物； 通常不在一起工作的人会就一个新想法进行协作； 在每个人都尝试新想法的过程中，我们建立了使命感并培养了创新能力。

马拉松长度 (Hackathon Length)

As Tableau has grown, our hackathons have changed. We have had to adapt to our growth, and learned a few things along the way.

随着Tableau的发展，我们的黑客马拉松也发生了变化。 我们必须适应我们的成长，并在此过程中学到了一些东西。

One of these learnings is the length of hackathons, which we have adjusted over the years. For a while we tried having a hack day every month. This turned out to be too short for us. Some of the ideas needed multiple hack days, and the creative juices had to get started up fresh every month.

这些学习之一是黑客马拉松的时长，我们多年来已经对其进行了调整。 一段时间以来，我们尝试每月进行一次黑客日活动。 结果对我们来说太短了。 有些想法需要数天的破解时间，而创意果汁必须每个月重新开始。

We have now settled on two, one-week hackathons each year. The last afternoon is dedicated to demos and celebrations. All meetings are canceled for the week! This is a large investment for Tableau, but the benefits outweigh the cost. (More on that later.) In the days leading up to the hackathon, there are Slack channel discussions, wikis with different ideas floated, and expertise recruiting. We had over 100 demos during our last hackathon event, which included two that involved our CTO. Would it surprise you to know that our CTO has been involved in some pretty awesome hacks over the years?

现在，我们每年确定两次为期一周的黑客马拉松。 最后一个下午专门用于演示和庆祝活动。 本周所有会议都取消了！ 对于Tableau而言，这是一笔巨额投资，但收益却超过成本。 (在后面的更多内容中。)在黑客马拉松的前几天，出现了Slack频道讨论，带有不同想法的Wiki和专家招募。 在上一次黑客马拉松活动中，我们有超过100个演示，其中包括两个涉及CTO的演示。 您知道我们的首席技术官多年来参与了一些非常棒的黑客活动，这会让您感到惊讶吗？

密度图…源自“热图黑客” (Density Maps… born out of a Heatmap Hack)

If you aren’t familiar with density maps, the left image below shows the hotspots for roadway repair in a major city. The image on the right shows the location of field goal attempts in the NBA over 100 games. In both cases, you can easily see the “hot spots” of issues or field goal attempts.

如果您不熟悉密度图，则下面的左图显示了主要城市道路维修的热点。 右图显示了NBA超过100场比赛中射门得分的位置。 在这两种情况下，您都可以轻松看到问题或实地目标尝试的“热点”。

Density Maps were introduced in Tableau 2018.3. Customers have been very excited by density maps because they allow new insights into data.

Tableau 2018.3中引入了密度图。 客户对密度图感到非常兴奋，因为它们允许对数据进行新的洞察。

You might imagine that management decided that Tableau needed density maps, and then allocated resources to get it done. But this is not the story of density maps.

您可能会想象管理层决定Tableau需要密度图，然后分配资源以完成它。 但这不是密度图的故事。

In 2015 an engineer tried to integrate a heatmap into Tableau during a hackathon. It worked, but was very hacky and slow. It didn’t get much attention. In the spring of 2017, this same engineer teamed up with another engineer to try heatmaps again. This time they were going to take advantage of the internal Tableau visual pipeline. During the hackathon, you could see them constantly huddled around a shared computer. They rarely left their seats, only on occasion to grab something to eat, or to ask a quick question from others more familiar with how marks are rendered in Tableau. At the end of the week, they were excited to show their progress. As they showed a very slick heatmap in Tableau, applause erupted in the room. After just a few minutes of demo, everyone immediately knew that customers would love this as a feature.

2015年，工程师在黑客马拉松期间尝试将热图集成到Tableau中。 它可以工作，但是非常笨拙且运行缓慢。 它并没有引起太多关注。 在2017年Spring，同一位工程师与另一位工程师合作，再次尝试热图。 这次，他们将利用内部Tableau视觉管道。 在黑客马拉松期间，您可以看到他们不断地挤在一台共享计算机周围。 他们很少离开座位，只是偶尔吃点东西，或者向其他更熟悉Tableau中如何绘制标记的人提出快速问题。 在本周末，他们很高兴展示自己的进步。 当他们在Tableau中显示非常光滑的热图时，房间里爆发出掌声。 在进行了短短几分钟的演示后，每个人都立即知道客户会喜欢此功能。

Hacks are not polished features. They had cut a few corners, and optimized for a specific use case. Soon after the hackathon, resources were allocated to finish the work they had started. There were still challenges to overcome. For example:

技巧不是完善的功能。 他们做了一些努力，并针对特定用例进行了优化。 黑客马拉松结束后不久，便分配了资源来完成他们已经开始的工作。 仍有挑战需要克服。 例如：

• Should heatmaps be density based or should there be other ways of aggregating, and how should the user choose between them?
  热图应该基于密度还是应该有其他汇总方式，用户应如何在它们之间进行选择？
• Should a heatmap be a mark type or something else?
  热图应该是标记类型还是其他？
• How should interactions such as selection and highlighting work with a heatmap?
  选择和突出显示等交互如何与热图配合使用？

As these questions were answered, and implemented, heatmaps became density maps and were introduced in 2018.3.

随着这些问题的回答和实施，热图变成了密度图，并于2018.3。

All this started with a single engineer who chose an interesting idea for a hackathon.

所有这一切都始于一位工程师，他为黑客马拉松选择了一个有趣的主意。

古怪的骇客 (Wacky hacks)

While some exciting Tableau features started out as hacks, some hacks are just wacky and will never see the light of day. One of my favorites was Tableau visualizations in 3-d. After putting on 3-d stereo glasses, the shapes come off the screen and float in the air! This was a lot of fun to use.

尽管一些令人兴奋的Tableau功能最初是作为黑客入侵的，但有些黑客只是古怪的，永远不会消失。 我最喜欢的之一是3维的Tableau可视化。 戴上3D立体眼镜后，形状从屏幕上掉下来并漂浮在空中！ 使用起来很有趣。

It doesn’t look like much here, but if you happen to have a set of stereoscopic glasses handy like these, you will see the shapes floating in the air above the map.

在这里看起来并不多，但是如果您碰巧有一组像这样的立体眼镜，您会在地图上方看到漂浮在空中的形状。

You might be wondering what the benefit would be to something like stereo 3-d visualizations? Hacks like these provide engineers the opportunity to work in code they normally don’t work in, and have a lot of fun doing so. You would also be surprised by the number of useful ideas that can be inspired by something wacky.

您可能想知道立体声3-d可视化会带来什么好处？ 此类黑客为工程师提供了使用通常不使用的代码进行工作的机会，并且这样做很有趣。 您也可能会对古怪的东西启发出的有用想法的数量感到惊讶。

Hackathon评判 (Hackathon Judging)

When we were a company of 50 employees, each hack got to present at a company meeting. When we were a company of 250, we set up a bunch of kiosks for demonstrations during the last day of hackathon. When we were a company of 2,500 a panel of judges nominated their favorite hacks, which were presented at a science-fair type exhibit at our company meeting.

当我们是一家拥有50名员工的公司时，每个黑客都必须出席公司会议。 当我们有250家公司的时候，我们在黑客马拉松的最后一天设立了一个小摊进行示威。 当我们是一家拥有2500家公司的公司时，一个评审团提名了他们最喜欢的黑客，这些黑客在我们公司会议上的一次科学展览会上展出。

Now that we are even larger, we present in front of our department. The presentations are recorded so that others can also watch them. A panel of judges vote on the best hacks in each department. The top hacks from each department are then presented to a panel of judges across the development organization. The winners from this round are then presented to a panel from the executive staff. It is an honor to be chosen as one of the top hacks in your department or across the development organization. Over the years, we have had some rewards like gift cards, or a high tech gadget for participating. But the rewards don’t have to be extravagant. In our case, most often the awards are as simple as a participant badge. I proudly display mine. :-)

现在，我们甚至更大了，我们将出现在我们部门的前面。 记录演示文稿，以便其他人也可以观看它们。 评审团对每个部门中最好的技巧进行投票。 然后将来自每个部门的顶级技巧提交给整个开发组织的评审团。 然后，来自这一轮的获胜者将由执行人员展示给小组。 被选为您部门或整个开发组织中的顶级黑客之一是一种荣幸。 多年来，我们获得了一些奖励，例如礼品卡或参加活动的高科技产品。 但是奖励不必太奢侈。 在我们的案例中，通常情况下，奖励就像参加者徽章一样简单。 我自豪地展示我的。 :-)

我们不应该考虑客户吗？ (Shouldn’t we be thinking about the customer?)

Hackathons really are about the customer! Many important features started as a hack. I listed some of those above. However, there is another benefit. You might be surprised to know that many hack ideas are inspired by ideas from the customer forums, as was the case with transparent worksheet backgrounds that was shipped in 2018.3. Customers benefit in multiple ways from internal hackathons. And by the way… if you are a Tableau customer, keep those forum ideas coming!

黑客马拉松真的与客户有关！ 许多重要功能始于黑客。 我列出了其中一些。 但是，还有另一个好处。 您可能会惊讶地发现，许多黑客创意都受到客户论坛的启发，就像2018年3月发布的透明工作表背景一样。 客户可以从内部黑客马拉松中以多种方式受益。 顺便说一句……如果您是Tableau的客户，请继续提出这些论坛想法！

Hackathon成本，Hackathon收益 (Hackathon Costs, Hackathon Benefits)

I previously stated that the benefits from hackathons outweigh the costs. What is the cost, what are the benefits? Two weeks a year is under 5% of the work year. That relatively small investment leads to many benefits. While they are harder to quantify, here are some that come to mind:

我之前曾说过，黑客马拉松带来的收益超过了成本。 成本是多少，收益是什么？ 每年两周不到工作年的5％。 相对较小的投资会带来很多好处。 尽管它们很难量化，但以下是一些要考虑的问题：

1. Many great ideas have been shipped as part of the product.
   作为产品的一部分，已经交付了许多很棒的主意。
2. A bunch of internal tooling and processes have been improved.
   许多内部工具和流程已得到改进。
3. Customers get excited from seeing their ideas inspire the development team.
   客户看到他们的想法激发了开发团队，从而感到兴奋。
4. A company culture of innovation and collaboration is built.
   建立了创新与协作的公司文化。
5. The culture of innovation at a company attracts innovative employees which leads to an increased culture of innovation, creating a virtuous cycle.
   公司的创新文化吸引了创新型员工，这导致了创新文化的增强，从而形成了良性循环。
6. Cross-pollination of ideas happens naturally through working with others across the development organization.
   通过与开发组织中的其他人合作，想法可以相互授粉。
7. Hackathons can lead to better ideas than brainstorming — hack projects are essentially built-out experiments rather than just a short phrase or a one-page idea pitch.
   hackathon可以带来比集思广益更好的想法-hack项目本质上是内置的实验，而不仅仅是简短的短语或一页的想法。
8. Development team morale is increased.
   开发团队的士气得到提高。

None of these benefits come from an executive decree, they naturally come from having regular hackathons. If you aren’t having hackathons at your company, be the champion and get them started. Happy hacking!

这些收益都不来自行政命令，自然而然来自定期举办黑客马拉松。 如果您的公司没有举办黑客马拉松，那就成为冠军，并让他们开始吧。 骇客骇客！

翻译自: https://engineering.tableau.com/hacking-tableau-c739e8b072b8