Late reply. I am fine with pseudo-code in the coding question. I just want to know that the candidate can visualize an algorithm and get it into something concr

Late reply. I am fine with pseudo-code in the coding question. I just want to know that the candidate can visualize an algorithm and get it into something concrete. Then be able to step through the code and tell me how the state of the machine will change. I could do this by just giving out a sample code and asking people to step through it, but I've seen difficulties with taking a spoken algorithm and turning it to code and I want to test that. I have seen some correlation between those struggles in interviews (its not a hard fail to fail the coding question) and in real life. I've discussed an approach with a coworker, then have them fail to write that into code that does what we discussed, just like they did in the interview. I have thought about bringing in a computer but I feel there's an added stress to typing correctly with someone in the room. Our phone screen coding question (really really simple) is done on a collaborative web environment, but that's a really simple 5 minute question.