[revetkn]

1. "On this particular challenge, I am expecting many will use RegEx as a part of the solution"

Really?

2. "replace(/[^a-z0–9]/ig, '');"

If I were interviewing and a candidate did this I would ask if he/she knows what i18n is

[swang]

one of his questions is, "does this need to support utf-8" and i'm assuming in his hypothetical interview it is, "no it does not"

also are you seriously going to quiz someone about i18n for a interview? does that really tell whether they are a hire/no hire?

[germanier]

Given how many sites fail as soon as I start entering an "ä" in the name field (even on websites marketed internationally) I'd prefer if people would. At least the very basics or else you get a bunch of people that won't think about those issues when developing.

[arethuza]

"also are you seriously going to quiz someone about i18n for a interview?"

Absolutely - in fact asking whether that regex was a good way of matching all characters in an input might be a good interview question.

[revetkn]

IMO in 2016 it is important to know the basics well enough to know if what you're doing is bad from an i18n perspective (at least for non-junior positions). Even a comment like "// TODO: localize" is OK

It is often a positive signal that a candidate has worked on software large enough to be used internationally or is thorough enough to worry about it. For most of us, day-to-day software work is about being thorough and careful with design and implementation, not heavy algorithmic lifting