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Comment by dfan | Hacker News Reader

I like seeing interviewees write on a whiteboard because I can see how they're thinking and help them out if I see that they're running into trouble. The point when I give a whiteboard question is to engage interactively with them over the course of ~15 minutes while they solve a problem, not to sit around and be handed a piece of paper at the end.

In addition, communicating with peers via whiteboard is a skill that is actually handy in day-to-day work life; it's not just some artificial interview skill.

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> communicating with peers via whiteboard is a skill that is actually handy in day-to-day work life; it's not just some artificial interview skill.

Exactly.

So sit next to the person while they write...

The natural posture, position, and size of writing on paper discourages that. It's also essentially impossible for me to step in and point to/mark up their code (and then erase it). The paper takes away any of the collaboration that can occur during an interview. Your code might be better, but I have trouble seeing that you'd be able to project as a positive impression as if you used the whiteboard.

Parents of children and teachers don't seem to have a problem with paper.

I don't have a problem with paper - I just feel like it would work against a candidate - not because "Oh...they used paper", but because some of the things that I think are signs of a good candidate don't show through.

I've never interviewed a candidate that asked me to use paper, so I can't be sure - it's just my instinct.

It might be completely biased though - I far prefer to use whiteboards - I love the space, I love how easy it is to erase without a trace. I can throw thoughts up there and the manipulate them.

What do you do when your too tall for the whiteboard because some short stubby interviewer placed it lower than normal to accomodate his stubbiness.

Trying to write code on a whiteboard is not the same as communicating with peers via a whiteboard. I've never written or seen written anything more code-like than function prototypes on a whiteboard outside an interview session.

Design and flows get thrown on whiteboards a lot, but those are not code, and their creation is not remotely like coding. You are "testing" exactly the wrong thing.

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