[cconstantine]

/agree with most of the people here. Coding questions have a purpose.

You need to consider what you are trying to determine by asking any question. Really, what is it about the candidate you want to know? After pinning down precisely what you want to know then tailor a question to figure this out with as little peripheral stuff as possible.

If you want to know if someone can generate some code in their preferred language on the spot, fine. Pick a very simple problem, like 'Write a program to display numbers in the fibinocci sequence', and explain the fib seq to them if they don't know it. I wouldn't even count points off if they make any kind of mistake that a compiler would catch as long as they know how to fix it. Have them do it on the white board.

This kind of Q isn't designed to figure out how much they know of 10 different languages. It's designed to see if they can put some code down in their preferred language and have it do something useful.

The biggest constraint in an interview isn't the honesty of the candidate, or even their knowledge; it's the N hour time limit. Your goal as the interviewer is to squeeze as much information about who the candidate really is in the time allowed.