[em-bee]

my experience with junior programmers suggested that they are not familiar with doing this. it seemed easier to give them the keyboard and let them work on the problem how they saw fit while observing and asking them questions in order to get them talking.

there is also the problem that instructions given by the candidate may not be clear and then i have to decide whether i just assume what they meant (because i already know how to solve the problem) or if i try to take them literally leading to frustration.