Something I did not mention in this article -- which I note I wrote eleven years ago -- is that in the time since I have occasionally had candidates say "I get

Something I did not mention in this article -- which I note I wrote eleven years ago -- is that in the time since I have occasionally had candidates say "I get anxious when writing on a whiteboard, can we do technical questions on my computer?" In those cases I have gone to the extra trouble to set up a problem on a computer, and then had the candidate explain their solution to me. So I have tried it both ways, and I see very little difference in the outcome. For example, I give a problem on detecting whether a tree is out of balance. A great many candidate makes the same bug; they check to see if the subtrees are balanced without also checking to see if the subtrees are of similar height. They make this mistake whether they are writing the code on the whiteboard or on a computer, because the error has nothing to do with how you are writing the code, it has to do with the thought process that happens when trying to translate a clearly-written specification into one line of bug-free code. Candidates who are informed that they have a bug solve (or don't) the same way on a whiteboard or a computer: by reviewing their code, re-reading the specification and thinking about test cases.