Submission timeline
2007–2026One slot for every year since HN launched. Height is that year's peak points; orange marks a 100+ point or 50+ comment breakout. Select a bar to open its strongest thread.
First comments on top threads
HN comment orderThis story made me think. Until now I had the impression that mediocrity at large corporations is inevitable no matter how many smart people they employ, simply due to the size of the corporation. For every talented, competent employee they have 10 average or below-average employees. Even at Google, even (and especially) at Microsoft. Competent people cannot choose who to work with so whatever extra they do is lost in the mediocrity that surrounds them. After reading this article I…
Does anyone have a link to the version where the Black Team member found a bug in rigourously (mathematically) proven code? edit Ah, here it is: http://www.penzba.co.uk/GreybeardStories/TheBlackTeam.html
> A member of the Black Team was the last person a programmer wanted to see walking towards him, and more than one programmer was reduced to tears while having his code evaluated by the Black Team. I hope that "reduced to tears" stuff is just hyperbole. But even so, there's an acceptance that to be effective you have to be an asshole, and it's just not true.
The first top-level comment from each of the four biggest threads, in HN’s own order. Excerpts are shortened; open a comment for full context.
- Breakout years
- 2
- Total points
- 515
- Total comments
- 118
100+ points or 50+ comments
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
Every submission
| Date | Title as submitted | By | Points | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2009-12-09 | IBM's infamous "Black Team" (2002)First breakout · Best thread | RiderOfGiraffes | 234 | 62 |
| 2011-04-21 | IBM's infamous "Black Team" | shawndumas | 232 | 51 |
| 2015-08-29 | The IBM Black Team (2002)Latest 20+ point return | caser | 26 | 5 |
| 2016-07-18 | The Black Team (2002) | Tomte | 2 | 0 |
| 2017-02-18 | The Black Team (2002) | Tomte | 3 | 0 |
| 2017-05-23 | The Black Team (2002) | Tomte | 2 | 0 |
| 2017-08-23 | The Black Team (2002) | Tomte | 2 | 0 |
| 2018-01-06 | The Black Team (2002) | Tomte | 1 | 0 |
| 2018-07-17 | The Black Team (2002) | Tomte | 2 | 0 |
| 2018-12-22 | The Black Team (2002) | Tomte | 2 | 0 |
| 2019-04-27 | The Black Team (2002) | Tomte | 2 | 0 |
| 2019-12-01 | The Black Team (2002) | Tomte | 1 | 0 |
| 2020-06-02 | The Black Team (2002) | Tomte | 2 | 0 |
| 2021-07-13 | The Black Team (2002) | Tomte | 2 | 0 |
| 2022-03-19 | The Black Team (2002) | Tomte | 2 | 0 |