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A white boarding exercise is only as useful as the person running it is. A quick example if you ask someone to design something in ruby (creme brulee) and they

A white boarding exercise is only as useful as the person running it is. A quick example if you ask someone to design something in ruby (creme brulee) and they say they only know Python (Flan) and you don't say "okay show me it in Python" you're totally doing it wrong - you either have the wrong candidate or you're asking the wrong questions. I've mostly only gotten value out of white board questions when interviewing folks in architecture or design roles (its a great way to just visually explain relationships) or for testing familiarity with algorithms. I've never used them for checking language syntax.

bascule 15y ago
Whiteboards can be invaluable tools and are a great way to explain problems. Writing large amounts of code that might require a great deal of revision is better served by a computer. My best experiences in job interviews on a whiteboard have been ones where the interviewer is also on the whiteboard, writing just as much as me if not more. My worst experiences have been where the interviewer was sitting in a chair on the opposite side of the room from me.
- marshray 15y ago
  My favorite job interview question was this one. The conference room had a projector on the whiteboard with this: char *c[]= {"ENTER", "NEW", "POINT", "FIRST", }; char **cp[]= {c + 3, c + 2, c + 1, c}; char ***cpp= cp; main() { printf("%s", **++cpp); printf("%s ", *--*++cpp + 3); printf("%s", *cpp[-2] + 3); printf("%s\n", cpp[-1][-1] + 1); } I just happened to be recently studying all the operator precedence rules and other subtleties in that code, so I got it all right. (Probably wouldn't do as well today :-) But mainly it was there as a point of discussion to see how you approached such code. And like most conference room whiteboards, most of the pens were dried out. I tossed those into the trashcan.
  - georgemcbay 15y ago
    "But mainly it was there as a point of discussion to see how you approached such code." One would hope that the expected answer was to approach it by way of promptly deleting it, replacing it with something readable, and then finding the person who wrote it and kicking them in the shin at least 8 times.
    - marshray 15y ago
      How are you going to know how to replace it unless you can figure out what it does?
raganwald 15y ago
This was posted on HN yesterday, it’s an implementation of HashLife. If you wanted someone to explain the algorithm, a whiteboard would be way more useful than code. On the other hand, if you wanted someone who could write CoffeeScript, code is way more useful than markings on a board. http://raganwald.github.com/cafeaulife/docs/cafeaulife.html http://raganwald.github.com/cafeaulife/docs/cafeaulife.html
- malingo 15y ago
  I fully agree, in part because several years ago I was asked to code (not sketch, not explain) Life on a whiteboard while interviewing at a large software company that many people would like to work for. It was absurd.

bascule 15y ago

Whiteboards can be invaluable tools and are a great way to explain problems. Writing large amounts of code that might require a great deal of revision is better served by a computer. My best experiences in job interviews on a whiteboard have been ones where the interviewer is also on the whiteboard, writing just as much as me if not more. My worst experiences have been where the interviewer was sitting in a chair on the opposite side of the room from me.

marshray 15y ago
My favorite job interview question was this one. The conference room had a projector on the whiteboard with this: char *c[]= {"ENTER", "NEW", "POINT", "FIRST", }; char **cp[]= {c + 3, c + 2, c + 1, c}; char ***cpp= cp; main() { printf("%s", **++cpp); printf("%s ", *--*++cpp + 3); printf("%s", *cpp[-2] + 3); printf("%s\n", cpp[-1][-1] + 1); } I just happened to be recently studying all the operator precedence rules and other subtleties in that code, so I got it all right. (Probably wouldn't do as well today :-) But mainly it was there as a point of discussion to see how you approached such code. And like most conference room whiteboards, most of the pens were dried out. I tossed those into the trashcan.
- georgemcbay 15y ago
  "But mainly it was there as a point of discussion to see how you approached such code." One would hope that the expected answer was to approach it by way of promptly deleting it, replacing it with something readable, and then finding the person who wrote it and kicking them in the shin at least 8 times.
  - marshray 15y ago
    How are you going to know how to replace it unless you can figure out what it does?

raganwald 15y ago

This was posted on HN yesterday, it’s an implementation of HashLife. If you wanted someone to explain the algorithm, a whiteboard would be way more useful than code. On the other hand, if you wanted someone who could write CoffeeScript, code is way more useful than markings on a board. http://raganwald.github.com/cafeaulife/docs/cafeaulife.html http://raganwald.github.com/cafeaulife/docs/cafeaulife.html

malingo 15y ago
I fully agree, in part because several years ago I was asked to code (not sketch, not explain) Life on a whiteboard while interviewing at a large software company that many people would like to work for. It was absurd.