Ok, so that conversation sounds pretty reasonable, you said "OK, I'll give it my best shot, but don't expect too much.", then proceeded to give it a shot and actually succeeded at debugging it. So... whats the problem?
[1] Actually, it was only half a day because they cancelled the interview after two hours. Like I said, I have not told you the whole story, and I'm not going to. But the whole thing was a train wreck from beginning to end.