
Ask HN: Interviews – what is the point of whiteboard coding with perfect syntax? - throwaway_3452
I&#x27;m finding writing code on a whiteboard totally throws me and is a completely different experience to being in front of a machine. I perform spectacularly poorly, with just zero &quot;flow&quot;. What is the point of a whiteboard coding interview? Why can&#x27;t you just equally put up a large screen and an IDE?
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itamarst
Asking you to write code that's _basically_ right is sort of stupid, but not
that bad. Asking for syntax-perfect code is just stupid hazing; ideally you'll
have a good interviewer that wants to see _how_ you solve a problem.

If you have issues with these kinds of interviews here's my advice: write
tests on the whiteboard, and explain you'll run the tests on the code after
first pass. That way you don't get nitpicked to death over typos or simple
mistakes, and you look like a careful programmer.

See [https://codewithoutrules.com/2016/04/04/interview-
puzzles/](https://codewithoutrules.com/2016/04/04/interview-puzzles/) for full
writeup.

