I'll agree with this on one condition: don't hold syntax errors against me. I interviewed for a position about eight months ago. I was rusty with my C (had been doing more java and python around that time), and put "int i = 0" in a for loop on a white board and seemingly had it counted against me. This kind of thing, along with things like missed semicolons, should be ignored by interviewers. Not only is it a simple fix, it also says nothing about the logic in the code.
Unless I've needed a specific language, like SQL for example, anytime I've asked a candidate to code on the whiteboard pseudocode has always been fine.
What makes you think it was held against you? Most programmers can be kind of OCD about code and would want to point out that kind of error, whether they thought it was relevant to your abilities or not.
