They do have to do something, because for I/O 2011 people were buying $450 tickets and immediately listing them on eBay for $1500+. Meanwhile, other actual developers just plain couldn't get in.
But, I do hope that whatever coding problems will be simply whatever is necessary to rule out scalpers who don't know squat about programming, and not to require people to build full-blown apps or the like.
If you have to jump through some flaming hoops to get in, I worry that they're not going to be as welcoming to "noobs" as they had in years past.
Google's offered "Boot Camp" in the past with tutorial sessions, on tech like Android and HTML5 to get you from zero to a point where you can get value out of the main conference sessions. They also gave some pretty substantial academic discounts to get students in the door, too.
If you are inexperienced with the featured tech, but you genuinely want to learn, you could still get some serious value out of the talks there. I didn't know the first thing about Android development prior to going to I/O 2010, and a month or so later I had a polished app to put on the market.
I wonder if the coding challenge will be something to pre-qualify you to be able to buy a ticket -- maybe you will have to write some code to pass some automated test case that's personalized to you, so you can't just Google for the solution.
Last year a lot of non-developers bought tickets just to scoop up the free goodies that Google gives out. My guess is yes, they will use a code problem or similar to filter out developers from carpet-baggers.
But you are the target demographic for the phone distribution - someone who is actually interested in and developing with the tech is a better development placement for a freebie phone than someone who wants a freebie phone.
I believe Google Developer Day 2011 required a coding challenge and the Last Call for Google IO 2011 also allowed around 100 developers free attendance for a successful coding entry.
But, I do hope that whatever coding problems will be simply whatever is necessary to rule out scalpers who don't know squat about programming, and not to require people to build full-blown apps or the like.
If you have to jump through some flaming hoops to get in, I worry that they're not going to be as welcoming to "noobs" as they had in years past.
Google's offered "Boot Camp" in the past with tutorial sessions, on tech like Android and HTML5 to get you from zero to a point where you can get value out of the main conference sessions. They also gave some pretty substantial academic discounts to get students in the door, too.
If you are inexperienced with the featured tech, but you genuinely want to learn, you could still get some serious value out of the talks there. I didn't know the first thing about Android development prior to going to I/O 2010, and a month or so later I had a polished app to put on the market.
I wonder if the coding challenge will be something to pre-qualify you to be able to buy a ticket -- maybe you will have to write some code to pass some automated test case that's personalized to you, so you can't just Google for the solution.