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Comment by 01100011 | Hacker News Reader

Same here, but that's only because I practiced. WB coding is a skill like any other, barring a physical issue which prevents you from writing on the WB.

I do sympathize though. The older I get, the slower I tend to think and the more silly mistakes I make. WBC is not a good way to show off my skills. Frankly I think WBC in general is biased towards the type of rote learners who grind through leetcode problems and know how to regurgitate canned answers, but that is dependent on your interviewer.

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I think "WB coding is a skill like any other" is exactly the point. It's a skill that does not really apply to the day-to-day work of most programmers though, so using WB coding as a criterion favors those who have the time to hone it, or are recent grads (the exams in many CS courses get quite close to white board programming). It's unclear that it's a direct proxy for age, but it's easy to see that many more senior programmers would have neither the time no recent academic experience to have that particular skill well-practiced.

I was going to say something similar. If whiteboard coding is a skill distinct from any you'd use after hiring, how useful is it as a filter? To a certain extent it's a sucker filter, selecting for people who are willing to invest time in learning a skill they know is just for show. Older workers tend to resist such things, because they've seen where it leads in other more important circumstances. That itself is valuable knowledge, and whiteboard interviewing selects against it.

It is strongly advised that if you get a question you've already practiced then you should tell your interviewers. At least that's the supposed code of conduct. So, what you're suggesting is that the code of conduct is just words and this is all just a set of moves that we have to go through.

What code of conduct? Who advises that? Expecting that to be followed seems like it would just disadvantage honest hard studiers and honest people who actually do figure out the solution on the spot, while rewarding dishonest talented performers who also happen to be hard studiers—so unless that's what you're trying to select for....

It's in the bible for the WB religion http://www.crackingthecodinginterview.com/

See - I've even gone through that. I'm that diligent.

Hahaha, touché. I either missed or forgot that bit. Guess I fail the test :-)

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