I think you are both taking extreme sides of this argument when there is a very reasonable middle ground<p>Should a programmer you hire be able to reason about CS problems? Yes. Do they need to be able to write out the best possible solution to a problem on a whiteboard within 15 minutes? No.<p>The white-board sessions only really serve to intimidate people who aren&#x27;t good public speakers, think better with some time and peace and quiet, or simply haven&#x27;t bothered to memorize code they never have to write from scratch.<p>Legitimately bad candidates could just as efficiently be eliminated by having a casual discussion about a CS concept that relates to the job description.