I too program professionally (shock of shocks), and I also enjoyed solving the problem. However, I'm torn on how informative this question would be in an interv

I too program professionally (shock of shocks), and I also enjoyed solving the problem. However, I'm torn on how informative this question would be in an interview setting. On the one hand, I kind of abhor gimmicky interview questions. On the other, it could provide some valuable insight into the candidate's thought process & reasoning. Also, I honestly feel like any competent engineer should be able to narrow the solution down to 3 possible dates with some thought and effort - even while in the interview hotseat. It would be unfair to deny someone a position solely on the basis of a logic / word puzzle, but if someone really is incapable (with some light guidance) of tackling at least part of 'cheryl's birthday' then I would want to dig a little deeper to figure out what's going on.