[ghaff]

Furthermore, just because you can bang out something in an hour or two doesn't mean that you will spend only an hour or two when you know you'll be competing against people who put a lot of effort into the task.

In my case, I do a lot of writing these days and, if someone were to ask me to write a thousand word analysis on some topic I was familiar with, I certainly could knock that off in a few hours. But, assuming I agreed to do it at all as part of the interview process--I'd be far more inclined to just give them a bunch of links to my work--I'm going to put the effort in to come up with a tight, polished product.

[MattHeard]

Given that job searching is often a numbers game, a one-hour homework assignment is a lot of work when multiplied over dozens (or 100+) applications.

[mcv]

That's why it shouldn't be the first step of the interview process, but it's totally fine as the last step. When the hiring party thinks: "we want this candidate if they're as good as they seem to be", then it's a good time to have a look at their code.

[PurpleBoxDragon]

Is it really normal for a developer to need to apply to that many positions to find a decent match? I've only ever done a dozen or so at once, and each one I spend a decent amount of time researching the company for tailoring a cover page (if they accept them) or for the interview. I find those making the hiring decisions are quite impressed by candidates who have done their homework (and more than once I've made the hiring manager a bit worried about how I found so much information just through google searches; they don't realize how much their employees let leak through Linked In resumes and such).