I honestly don't know what the masses expect companies that hire programmers to do. We're told that we're not as good of a company if programmers don't program in the interview. But then the next thing we're told is that nobody programs on a whiteboard and/or with someone watching. To help, we come up with take home exercises that are custom to us so we know the answers are real. Now this article and the parent are saying we're wasting time with these "puzzles".

When I hire, I do a phone screen before asking the candidates to complete the code exercise. If it isn't going to be a fit from either of our perspectives, then they didn't spend time doing it.