I see two problems with the implied argument here. The first is that other industries would probably very much like to do these kinds of things, if it weren't i

I see two problems with the implied argument here. The first is that other industries would probably very much like to do these kinds of things, if it weren't impractical to do so. The relevant difference is in fact that these practices are practical for software whereas they aren't for civil engineering and law. The second is that software development may be unusual in that it's very easy to phrase what are essentially IQ test questions as "coding" questions, even though the code part is secondary. Arguably, the smarter thing would just be to give an actual IQ test, but I think people are squeamish about that idea, so coding questions can be used as a proxy.