Isn't that the whole point of an interviewer writing code on the whiteboard? To see how the applicant would view that code if hired to work in the offered position? Why would an interviewer want the applicant to view that code in any other way? Is an interviewer likely to think, "I'll treat the interviewee's comments as if he was just writing the code as a hobby throwaway, nothing to do with the offered position"?
> the variable names and magic numbers are bad practice / but it's on a whiteboard. I'm not going to waste time writing long descriptive names out by hand on a whiteboard
Great! But in my post the interviewer wrote the code on the whiteboard. The interviewer did not ask the interviewee to write any code on the whiteboard. Where did you get the idea that the interviewee was to write on the whiteboard? Software development requires attention to detail, yes?