[ubernostrum]

Asking a person to traverse and modify a linked-list (a very common problem) or to implement a B-tree are not 'tech outside their job'

Yes, it is.

More to the point, it's built-in bias toward recent college graduates. Once someone's actually been out in the real world programming for several years, any space in their brain's metaphorical working set that was ever dedicated to remembering how to do this stuff has long since been paged out in favor of the actual day-to-day knowledge they need to do their job. Implementing basic data structures and algorithms is not part of what they need to do their job; that stuff's already provided by the platforms they use.

So when you get to the interview, if you just put someone on the spot and ask them to do one of these things, you're inherently biasing toward an inexperienced recent college graduate who will have this stuff close to the top of their head (on account of having just done it in school and not yet swapped it out of working memory through time on the job).

Which is in turn why there are now books you study -- as an already-qualified programmer -- in order to freshen your memory and ability to quickly regurgitate problems that have nothing whatsoever to do with your day-to-day work, in order to be able to perform them on command in interviews.

[aswanson]

Right, as a metaphor, I'd almost compare it to grading a novelist or writer's grammatical knowledge of parts of speech and sentence structure rather than their ability to write a book or compelling article.

[ktRolster]

I'll be honest, traversing a linked-list and implemented a B-tree (assuming someone reminds you what a B-tree is) are not particularly difficult problems. If you have trouble with those, I'm going to really wonder if your programming skills are really very good to begin with.

[ubernostrum]

Those are bad examples, but real interview questions tend to be "implement from scratch, live and without reference to any materials, these things you've forgotten about because you could take them for granted for such a long time".

Also these days the trendy interview problem is longest common subsequence, which ends up testing "how recently did you review dynamic-programming techniques", not "can you code".

[richmarr]

> I'll be honest, traversing a linked-list and implemented a B-tree (assuming someone reminds you what a B-tree is) are not particularly difficult problems

I'll be honest, this is indistinguishable from "I am good at X and I'm great therefore X is a good measure of ability".

Maybe worth rephrasing

[graffic]

They're not particularly difficult. You usually take the algorithm definition and implement one, as you did in the university or in the Coursera algorithms course. Fun, you might learn a thing or two about the language you're using.

If the point of the exercise is a TRIVIA question, leave the interview. On the other hand, if the point of the exercise is not to get the right solution but see how you think and how you use basic programming blocks, then you're in the right place.

I've used the linked list question. And the goal is not for me to check if it is "not difficult" for you. Because I might not be able to teach you what a linked list is in 5 minutes while you're nervous in a technical interview. But to work on technical problems and see the following:

- Can you speak your mind so your peers know what are you doing?

- Will you ask for help?

- Will you accept help and feedback?

- Can we have a discussion about something that there are many "right answers"?

- Do you know the basic building blocks of the language you decided to use? <-- This plus javascript plus references is very funny.

[richmarr]

You refer to the interviewers as 'peers' but that's very much not the relationship that exists in an interviewer. The context is different, therefore the behaviour is different.

What you're describing is a confidence bias filter, dressed as an objective test.

[Terr_]

Individually, with minor refreshing-study, perhaps no.

But in practice it's merely one of hundreds of things that might get instantly sprung on you as you stand before a whiteboard. In addition, developers with actual jobs can't stay in a continuous cycle of "exam cram" to the same extent that unemployed recent graduates can.

[Apocryphon]

Traversing is a linked list is far simpler than implementing a B-tree.