What about just asking the candidate to do the same simple task on a computer that they own?
But in general, I think the idea of the whiteboard interview is a chance to see someone "think out loud", to see them reason through a problem. Getting a chunk of source code in an email isn't representative of that. (At worst, they paid someone to do it for them; at best, you have no idea what their approach was. Somewhere in the middle is copying and pasting most of it from SO.)
This is exactly why I do this kind of stuff as well when interviewing. It's not about syntax or the ability to recall (regurgitate?) a function, but how does someone approach a problem and where can the conversation go from there. If you sent someone pre-work to write an array matcher, you'll see a final result, but not how they think through it, and you'll miss potential queues to further the conversation.
Which would easily come out at the interview when they fail to answer basic questions about their code.
> at best, you have no idea what their approach was
So? Did you get code that would pass a code review? Did you get code with good commits/history?
It is much easier to talk about a solution, when the solution is right there in front of you, and you read an explanation of the solution online.
Regurgitating someone else's solution is fairly easy.
So thinking out loud while coding is a job requirement now? I have been an engineer for over 14 years, and a software engineer for 10, and I can count on one hand the number of times I have done that outside of an interview. I collaborate all the time, but almost never synchronously while actually writing code.
Sure.
>>And doing that out loud is the one of the few ways people can see how/if you do that.
Strongly disagree. I would posit that written explanations are a much better indicator of someone's ability to reason about problems, because:
a) They can provide hyperlinks, images and other supporting materials to aid their explanation
b) You also get to see if they are a competent writer, which is also a very important skill for an engineer
Using their own computer way to many struggle with creating a new project or other basic things. And that dont make them comfortable either. It also takes much longer then using the whiteboard.