> vs "Implement a hash table", which isn't too hard to do for a naive solution, and demonstrates that you know how the basic data structures you work with day t

> vs "Implement a hash table", which isn't too hard to do for a naive solution, and demonstrates that you know how the basic data structures you work with day to day work. I disagree, anyone can write out an algorithm from memory. That's not hard, and does not prove that you know what you're doing. I've done my small share of interviewing, and I always did a little bit of whiteboard coding, but the objective was never to see if the candidate remembered algorithms, but to see if they could execute code in their head. Because I've encountered "programmers" who clearly couldn't execute code in their head, and whose idea of programming was copy-pasting something and heuristically modifying it until it did what it was supposed to do, instead of knowing what the code does. And you really want to make sure you screen for this group so that they fail the interview.