[hinkley]

There are two situations where I wouldn't harass my coworkers for asking sort related questions.

One, I've asked. Not implementing sort, but implementing complex compare() functions for sortable values. There are many things I can accept as flaws in a coworker but inability to deal with 3 conditionals at once isn't one of them. And I've had people (interviewed or worse, worked with) who can't sort by last name, first name, age.

The other is the "I gave you code now tell me what's wrong with it" answer but that's not writing a sort algorithm, that's detecting that someone needs a better one.

Personally, I'd be all too happy if we stop interviewing people expecting answers that would never pass a code review. I'd say it's hypocritical but it's not even that. It's just wrong headed, and gives bad information to the candidate.