[j_baker]

My point is that a person's inability to code on a whiteboard has little to do with the value they can provide to the business. Some people just aren't good at it, and why should they be penalized for it? There are other ways to get programmers to write code in an interview, and a simple "Do you prefer to code on the whiteboard or on a computer?" can resolve this. It's not as though that's a huge burden on the business or the interviewer.

[btmorex]

I've been doing a lot of interviewing recently. When people struggle with a white board problem, I give them a laptop to code on. I have yet to find someone who struggled at the white board, but did fine on the laptop. Maybe they exist, but I tend to think there's a high correlation between white board performance and laptop performance.

[Robin_Message]

Sorry, what? You seriously think some people's coding skill depends on the writing medium? That's not what the OP was saying: they said they didn't know how to create a linked list from scratch, whether they were writing on a whiteboard, a computer or with a crayon on the back of a 4000 year old cuneiform tablet from Mesopotamia.

Is it that you just don't like the kind of problems that are being asked (fundamental computer science) and would rather see more real-world problems? Or do you genuinely think the wide, stubby pen and vertical orientation impairs some people's coding ability? Just to note, I can see the performance aspect of the whiteboard is stressful, but coding on a machine with everyone looking at you is stressful too.