[Gunax]

Tl;dr but this debate has been done, a million billion times already.

The author concludes with a decent summary of the issue (ie. Is this the best method among the worst?). But doesn't actually find a better way of doing things.

And in the million forum threads on this issue, no one else has either.

[hnfong]

Of course there are. I've hired a person once because I had known him 20 years ago and he knew his skills were top notch. (And to be clear, we haven't been in touch for many years since.)

But I don't know that many people. Properly conducted live coding is the least worst alternative out there for complete strangers.

[ncr100]

Pay the interviewee, have them fix a real big or add a real feature, do it in a pair with another dev.

Works great.