[philparsons]

Asking people to write code on a whiteboard in the pressure of the interview environment doesn't seem very reflective of how they work day to day to me. Perhaps judging them on previous projects or open source work they have contributed to would be a better approach. If someone gave me a pen and a whiteboard and asked me to draw code I think I would likely say thanks but no thanks and walk out of the interview.

[techdmn]

Well, if somebody walked out on me I guess that would end the interview. :) I have candidates write code on a white board, but not terribly difficult problems, and I always issue this disclaimer:

"My brain doesn't work as well when writing by hand as when I'm typing. This doesn't have to be perfect. If you get stuck, ask for help, we'll talk through it. Think of this as a starting point for a technical conversation."

As a candidate, I would worry about my future coworkers if I were not asked to write code during the interview.

[philparsons]

Indeed, it would be interview terminated.

Perhaps I'm envisaging an ideal world but I'd much rather see some production code they have produced and ask questions about that. It's very easy to gauge someone's knowledge of a particular technology by just talking to them about it.

[thaumaturgy]

Yeah, I'm not sure I'd walk out -- depends on how bad I wanted it I guess -- but I would point out that I tend to write marginal code first and then go back and make it pretty in a second (or sometimes third) go-round, later. It's like that funny old saying, "I apologize for the length of this letter; I didn't have time to make it shorter."

But, if they're just trying to get an idea of your abilities and critical thinking skills and coding style, it's really not that big of a deal.

[sukuriant]

That's more than likely what they're intending. They're coders too. They know what sort of code can he pushed out in 5 minutes.

[kabdib]

It's amazing how many people can't write strlen(). Honest.

Then you find out they don't know what 'const' means, have never heard of size_t, and spend 20 lines on something that should be about three.

I wouldn't find that out otherwise. Instead, I'd find out after hiring someone, and spend six months to a year getting them run out. That sucks.

So: Everyone writes code.

[brown9-2]

Perhaps judging them on previous projects or open source work they have contributed to would be a better approach.

The problem with this - ignoring the open source part for a second - is that it is very hard to accurately judge someone's contributions to a project at their previous job from their verbal description alone.

Also, you run the risk of discarding candidates who had the misfortunate of working on boring projects at boring companies.

[kingofspain]

I hated writing semicolons by hand for a paper & pen coding test I did a long time ago - I spent more time than I really should've in trying make them not look like colons. I find my sense of penmanship is very difficult to overcome (God knows why - my handwriting is atrocious!)

Do whiteboard test really work better than giving someone an editor?

[noarchy]

For me, I think having an editor in front of me gets my mind "in the mode". Heck, I can break a period of procrastination just by firing one up.

I never enjoy writing anything on a whiteboard, be it code or some kind of drawing for a meeting. I'm also plagued by lousy handwriting, and I don't draw particularly well.

One interview scenario that I did not mind, and was editor-free, was one where I was shown Powerpoint slides of code. I was asked to fix what I saw, or determine if anything was really wrong at all.

[endtime]

How many tech companies have you interviewed with? I've never seen one, big company or tiny startup, that doesn't ask you to write code by hand in the interview.