[hnfong]

> I have never understood the hostility toward whiteboarding

If anything a candidate that rejects whiteboarding is a good signal that they're not a good team fit.

I personally prefer to conduct coding interviews in an environment where the code can be executed (if that's the main objection for "whiteboarding"), but even so the environment is often too different from what the interviewee is used to (IDE / availability of familiar libs / OS environment) that it's not that different from whiteboarding anyways.

In my personal experience there are indeed occasionally people that I'd recommend for strong hire with their past experience / credentials alone, but it's too rare to make any rule out of it, and if any candidate outright rejects it, it probably gives a signal that I'd personally interpret as negative anyways.