>But of course, the point of an interview is to identify the good, not the bad, so harder problems would do just fine as well in ruling out the bad. Yes, and n

>But of course, the point of an interview is to identify the good, not the bad, so harder problems would do just fine as well in ruling out the bad. Yes, and no. Hard problems, being hard, mean that you don't expect all the good programmers to pass them, but to see how they think around them. And some people are able to talk the talk without walking the walk. It's better to have an easy problem and a hard one. The easy one weeds awfully bad people, the hard one helps you find the good among the rest.