[lobotryas]

Sounds great, although like with any retraction I doubt this will be enough to stop the spread of interview puzzles. Even I'm guilty of asking my share before I realized that the only thing that matters about the candidate is whether they can sit down and start writing code (and the quality of said code).

[objclxt]

Google still ask puzzles: they just don't ask brainteasers.

For example, write a program to find every possible word in a given Boggle board is a puzzle, but one you're going to solve by coding...rather than "how many piano tuners are there in New York", which is a rather different matter. I've interviewed on-site with Google several times, and always found the CS puzzles to be challenging but fair.

[drgath]

> Google still ask puzzles: they just don't ask brainteasers.

Isn't the only difference between "brainteasers", "puzzles", and real engineering challenges, just the usefulness of the result?

I get what you are saying though. Asking someone challenges rooted in technology seems so much more useful and natural than something involving ping pong balls and Lake Michigan.