I've never said you should hire people who can't tell var from const. I've said that even if you hire people who do know the basics of the language, and some a

I've never said you should hire people who can't tell var from const. I've said that even if you hire people who do know the basics of the language, and some algorithms, and even could solve a toy problem on paper, you might still hire someone who can't code at scale. Coding interviews typically don't test design skills, documentation skills, ability to not get lost on a larger code base, debugging skills, tendency to avoid hacks and increase tech debt etc.