[nakovet]

Yes, I read the entire article, maybe I didn't articulate correctly, my point is, given you are in an interview and somebody asks you "Show me factorial please", wouldn't be a smarter move to import a module that something already wrote and just use it?

Again, I read the entire article and saw he ended up with a generic solution.

[MetaCosm]

I think HIS point was about premature abstraction and YAGNI. The article was just examples of terrible abstractions... they were intentionally terrible. The "generic solution" was an example of what NOT to do.

The article wasn't interview advice, it was advice about avoiding premature abstraction.

[fineman]

> a smarter move [...]

The goal is getting the job, or being a smart ass?

As an interviewer, I'll put this one to bed. Pick up the white-board marker and start writing.

The intern can look up libraries; I want to see if you can understand what we'd be looking for in those libraries. If you can't implement and discuss a simple version of it, odds are that you cannot.

If during this process you talk about how you'd be starting a build/buy research cycle at certain points and what that'd look like, as we spec out the problem and build a prototype, that wouldn't be misplaced.