I read Eric Lippert's article Writing Code On Whiteboards Is Hard and I agree with most of what he's saying there. In my experience it really is an effective interviewing technique.
In his comments he compares the whiteboard session to a group design situation which occurs often at work. I can see some similarity, but one is collaborative design and the other is purely used to evaluate your ability to do the job.
Anyways, I don't interview a programmer without giving programming questions because I know that if they do a great job, they will almost certainly do a great job when hired. The problem of course is that I'm sure that sometimes good people get passed over based on their whiteboard performance.
The other problem I have with whiteboard coding and mathematical puzzles in interviews is that I personally find them nerve wracking when I'm being interviewed so I feel a little bad for making someone else suffer. Makes me nervous just thinking about it : )
Posted by edward at April 19, 2004 03:09 PM