[jasonvm]

I think this is the best approach. You get the opportunity to do exactly what the job expects, without the pressure of having to manage communication with someone breathing down your neck. A savvy employer can extrapolate what you're able to produce over 2 hours to whatever project they'd have you work on.

[cozicoolmail]

We've had pretty good luck with it thus far. Generally, it is a good way to chop off the long tail of "not good enough" and bring the better ones onsite.

As you said, we calibrated our general expectation to what we think is reasonable in 2 hours - so we expect "good enough" code, but not perfect code.