Well after the experience of the hackathon I would be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous about attending the developers day. I decided to go anyways and give Google a chance to redeem themselves.
well the day didn’t start off very well although the venue was superb. The keynote address was nothing short of uninspiring. The next segment regarding Android development was just as uninspiring. Being at a developers day I was expecting a slightly more in depth presentation regarding Android and not the usual stuff you can pick up anywhere on Google. After the first presentation I decided I was going to ditch the Android track and proceeded to the Google Application Engine (GAE) presentation, hoping things would get better but not expecting it to.
Well I was wrong! The Google Application Engine presentation was superb. Opening my eyes to a span of horizons regarding the technology (which I am not going to get into now). With a smile on my face I proceeded to the next mobile presentation which covered some stats. The audience asked some absurd questions that took up most of the presentation so I don’t think the speaker got to finish. I will get back to the questions in a second.
Once he completed his segment we started a code lab using HTML 5 and Google Chrome. YAY! Finally get to do some coding! It was super cool to code along to the presentation and watch the project start taking shape. At the end of the presentation we could finish the application and submit it. By submitting it we would put ourselves in line to win a Samsung Galaxy Ace (S5830). I proceed to keep my head down and complete the project.
Will working on the lab, the presentations continued around Google+ (eish) and some start up support project that Google is running with interviews and some inspiration stuff for those that are interested in starting their own business. Having tried this and failed miserably (due to some bad decisions on my part), I am fully aware of the pitfalls and pointers that these individuals were giving so I listened with half an ear. They have some fantastic ideas though, I am looking forward to seeing them come to fruition.
Anyways I carried on with the lab and finally finished it. Sitting around a friend of mine asked if I had submitted it for review. This was 20 minutes before the deadline! So I rushed off and had the guys have a look at the lab and they signed it off.
Anyways we got to the prize giving and two individuals grabbed what appeared to be two Samsung Galaxy S2 devices. Very cool! Then came the announcement for the winner of the Samsung Galaxy Ace. After going through the process of eliminating contenders, by God’s grace alone, I was chosen as the winner. I gladly accepted the prize but was then asked to demo the lab! I am not much of a public speaker, especially if I am unprepared but I did it anyway. I am not sure the audience understood what I was saying while running through the lab application but at least the one liner at the end got a bit of a chuckle. Oh and for the record, to all you Microsoft haters out there, my code lab was completed using Visual Studio 2010 and hosted on IIS 7.5. So there! Microsoft tools can also get the job done! The right tool for the job.
So all in all, the day was a success. Some surprises as to offerings by Google, who seem to also be adopting a cloud service offering and some really cool education regarding HTML 5
Thanks Google, for the time, the presentations and the prize. Only piece of advice I have is to perhaps include more labs, less rushed time slots and a little more food at lunch time 
As for the audience, I urge you to please formulate your thoughts before asking a question. Babbling along trying to create a question and sound intelligent at the same time just puts people to sleep. Make the question short and too the point. Give the speaker the opportunity to respond and leave it at that. Do not engage in a conversation with the individual, it is just rude and inconsiderate to the rest of the audience, if you want to explore your questions more in depth take it offline. Probably the most embarrassing moments for me (as a South African) was the questions around “What Google is going to do for the poor with regard to giving them mobile devices” and then the question regarding what Google was going to do about the fact that a 2 year old device wasn’t going to run the Android Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4). Lets be honest here, 2 years in the technology space is a long time. I hate to admit it but it is. I also get upset with the fact that we toss out hardware like toilet paper but we cannot expect Google to make sure their Android OS is backwards compatible with the plethora of hardware vendors previous devices. Sure this was a Google Nexus device but let also not kid ourselves as to the maturity of the Android OS. It is a relatively new OS in the grand scheme of things and unfortunately if we are going to be early adopters these are the prices we are going to pay. Perhaps what we should do is petition the device manufacturers to work more closely together with Google.
Another thing to remember is that the more backwards compatible a piece of software is, the more bloated it will become. In the mobile space you cannot afford bloat. A mobile OS needs to be lean and tight. Doing only what it absolutely has to. With limited power we cannot go overboard the way we do with our personal computers. (This includes Mac)
Well I think I have pretty much covered everything and the next time I will 1) Prepare something for the Hackathon and 2) definitely attend the next developer day.Time to see if I can get a Microsoft developer day in somewhere as well
Thanks again to everyone that made today what it was and I enjoyed meeting those that I did and those that I didn’t, well maybe next time
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