[dman]

Ive choked on some very simple programming problems in circumstances where I am being closely watched. I need to be by myself to think about problems and attack the problem incrementally. Somehow having an audience seems to force me to attack the whole problem at once before writing anything. In short, I don't know if my experience is unique but there might be other programmers who under perform when being closely watched.

[T-R]

I sometimes just completely fail to function at a whiteboard. I've choked to comedic proportions on problems I'd solved easily only a few days before. There's not a doubt in my mind that my resume's been thrown in the "Non-programming programmer" pile due to my stage fright at least once. I can certainly sympathize with the need for a low false-positive rate, but as a candidate I can't help but wish that overcoming stage fright wasn't also such a prerequisite for working with good programmers.