As an interviewer: "Tell me what you've done in your career. We'd like to give you money to do those things for us."
That's all I really want or need for either side of the table.
Also, why would I leave my job where I'm not on probation for a new job where I am on probation?
There may be more to the story, but in the absence of other information, "fired for using Notepad to write code" strikes me as being more on the arbitrary and capricious end of the scale than the rational and justified end.
It's a lot like firing a carpenter for using a screwdriver instead of a power drill with a screwdriver bit.
Employers need to be very careful about the termination process; employees can claim compensation for unjustified or constructive dismissal. The employee might be glaringly at fault, but if the employer does not follow process (or even fails to document that) then a ruling can go against them.
Claims are very common here; there are various law outfits which just specialise in this area (e.g. the 0800 SACKED toll free number).
Decades of union-busting lobbying has resulted in "at-will" employment being the default in many states that formerly had better employee protections. Contracts are now uncommon, and contracts that do not heavily favor the employer are rare. This was sold as making it easier to hire and fire employees, but my observations suggest that it has not made it easier to hire.
Working in much of the U.S., aside from a few specific states, is toiling under the Sword of Damocles. My worst-case anecdote was being laid off with 3 days of notice with no severance. In theory, that should have triggered a federal penalty, since the entire office facility was laid off, but the company did some sort of legal sidestep to avoid that, which amounted to "You're not being laid off; we're just not giving you any work or paying you." When I found a new job 2 weeks later, the company demanded a resignation letter in order to release my security clearance responsibility to the new company. I refused, but I still had to write a note for their records explaining how layoffs work.
I'm continually surprised at people who come from Europe or Commonwealth countries to work in the US. Perhaps they just don't know?
That aside, Notepad is bad because every single other text editor is probably better. Syntax highlighting, macros, plugins, ftp, language based autocomplete, etc. You can build projects directly from a lot of them with a couple of keystrokes.
Of course, if you are in a big company this is too much time and work (Recently had 6 interviews at big corps, not a single line of code written for a junior position)
How is this even possible for people that already have a job? Are they supposed to take two days vacation or do it in the weekend?
I really don't know because I was only an intern, but I guess they took vacation days (law mandates minimum 20/year). But I also recall a discussion here on HN on this topic, where applicants (at a different company) were in invited to work on a weekend.
2 days is probably overkill for US-companies, but a bit of pair-programming on real problems seems a lot better than "Let's see if you memorized this trivia fact you'll never need in your job"