[bborud]

Well, in real life this varies. I've seen interviewers from among the first 200 Google employees, nitpick their way through someone's whiteboard code, obsessing over every comma and semicolon. It was embarrassing. And I have to say that while shadowing these interviews I couldn't help but think "I've seen your code - you have bigger problems than getting the syntax perfect, mate" (about the interviewer).

It depends on who you get as your interviewers, so generalizing isn't really useful. Some interviewers can't relate the interview to what it is supposed to tell you. I've seen that in inexperienced interviewers and I've seen that in very experienced interviewers who had enough GOOG stock to buy a small country.

If the interviewer can't think of a better way to test candidates, that's on the interviewer. Not the candidate.