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"it really helps understanding how the developer thinks when he's trying to solve a problem."

How does it do this over watching them code on computer? Could you please provide examples of how this helps more than say them bringing in their own laptop (being provided with one for use if they don't have one) and you hooking it up to another display and watching what they write as they write it in the same room with them?

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I have tried that as well in the eleven years since I wrote this article. It is much more work for me to set up a development environment, get the monitoring software working, blah blah blah, and there are many points of failure, but if the candidate feels more comfortable doing it that way I'm willing to do so.

The problems that I ask are so easy that it really does not make a difference whether the candidate is writing on a whiteboard or typing on a computer; most of the problems I ask can be solved in fewer than six lines of code. I am using the code as a starting point for the conversation, not the end point.

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