Since I work from home, I haven't had to do interviews in a long time, but back when I did, I did always ask one programming question, but it would be only one

Since I work from home, I haven't had to do interviews in a long time, but back when I did, I did always ask one programming question, but it would be only one step harder than trivial. I'd say use whatever language you want, even make one up, so long as you can explain parts where I might have questions. I didn't care about syntax, or performance, or cleverness -- just does it work. If they can't do that, you don't want them for a coding position.