[bmay]

1) If you know what a DAG is and how to use it, you can most likely implement and traverse one in way less than an hour.

2) I've never heard of anyone being asked to implement a red-black tree during a Google interview.

[vonmoltke]

> 1) If you know what a DAG is and how to use it, you can most likely implement and traverse one in way less than an hour.

I know what it is and how to use it. I can implement and traverse one. I seriously doubt I could do it in an hour, especially if I don't have at least standard library documentation available.

[Ar-Curunir]

Whiteboard code interviews don't require you to flesh out such things in any great detail; they're intended as proxies for your thinking process.

[vonmoltke]

You should tell that to some of my whiteboard coding interviewers, then. Plus, I feel that many of the interviewers who claim to be interested in though process still have a "right" way in mind and will dock interviewees for not approaching a problem the way they would.

Anyway, the post I was replying to said, " you can most likely implement and traverse one in way less than an hour" (emphasis mine). That statement has nothing to do with thought processes. To me, that requires "flesh[ing] out such things in any great detail".