> All this selects for is the candidate to have a working definition of an ascii decimal string in their head, it represents no ability to problem solve whatsoe

> All this selects for is the candidate to have a working definition of an ascii decimal string in their head, it represents no ability to problem solve whatsoever. Problem solving isn't orthogonal to having genuine expertise. Loads of awful, brittle, hard-to-read, but working, code gets written every day by people who are good at finding a solution but haven't RTFM, so to speak.