[jcadam]

Heh, at my previous employer the only coding question we asked during interviews was: "Find the largest element in an array of integers." Some of the ways people found to not solve that simple problem were amazing.

Now, I'm generally against asking hard-core CS questions in a live interview... but a simple bozo filter is probably a good idea.

[blindhippo]

It really does surprise me how a simple programming questions like this does stump the average interviewee. If they need a bit of guidance to get started, I never hold it against the candidate, but if they need a massive hand holding to come to a solution, or if they can't explain how their solution works and how it could be improved, then I know where they stand programming wise.

It is a low bar skills wise, and it tells a lot within a very short amount of time.