Ask HN: Interview coding - whiteboard or keyboard?

3 points by iMark ↗ HN
In a recent interview I was asked to complete a couple of coding questions on a whiteboard. Both questions required a reasonable amount of code to complete. I didn't embarrass myself, but I did find it to be a difficult experience. I tend to type and revise as I'm going along, something which doesn't lend itself well to whiteboarding.

I've noticed other developers struggling in similar situations when I've interviewed them, so I switched to making sure they had a laptop to code on, with an overhead projector displaying the results for anyone wanting to observe the process. It represents a more realistic situation, and I've generally been happier with the results.

On the other hand, working on a whiteboard forces people to put more thought into what they're about to do upfront, which may be the point.

I'm curious to hear other perspectives on this.

3 comments

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Keyboard. You can edit and move code and it's also much faster to type than to write. I don't understand why anyone still uses whiteboards for anything other than pseudocode. What advantage does a whiteboard have in interviews when what you're hired for is typing code?
Well, it depends. Are you looking to hire a programmer or a teacher? ;)
both and access to the Web. the white board because you need a plan, the keyboard because ... it's code, and the web since it's hard to program without looking up sources