> If I don't know the exact answer in advance, I need to feel my way by trying something, back tracking then trying a variation etc... That sort of "coding by

> If I don't know the exact answer in advance, I need to feel my way by trying something, back tracking then trying a variation etc... That sort of "coding by accident" is exactly what interviews like that are designed to exclude. No doubt some very few people can successfully code that (wrong) way but the vast majority who do so are simply incompetent.