Google does none of what you prescribe for "good interviews" and they have interviewing down to a science. Yes they've admitted they err on false negatives, but that is acceptable because they have little to no false positives.
From what I gather you want an easy interview. What you wrote is impractical (though I agree gotcha questions can be a bit much).
As a candidate, I get 1-hour with you and I need to accomplish the following:
1. Does your resume reflect your experience?
2. Can you code?
3. What is it like to work with you to solve a challenge?
4. Sell you on joining us.
Real life problems may fit in an hour, but may not.
There are so many resources on programming interviews that spending an hour or two during the week prior would pay off dividends in a candidates success rate.
I interviewed with Google last year and the interviewer did two of the four things listed in killface's post. I actually do not agree with killface that those four things are necessarily bad (programmers should at least be able to make really good guesses at complexity, and know about trees), but at any rate, Google definitely had no fucking idea what my capabilities are as a developer after that interview, so incompetent was the interviewer.
It was actually one of the more terrible interviews I've been a part of, and I was not disappointed by the negative result. Google certainly believes they have interviewing down to a science, but I suspect that belief is itself not scientific, and instead just the usual bullshit and collective delusion.
Google does none of what you prescribe for "good interviews" and they have interviewing down to a science. Yes they've admitted they err on false negatives, but that is acceptable because they have little to no false positives.
From what I gather you want an easy interview. What you wrote is impractical (though I agree gotcha questions can be a bit much).
As a candidate, I get 1-hour with you and I need to accomplish the following:
1. Does your resume reflect your experience?
2. Can you code?
3. What is it like to work with you to solve a challenge?
4. Sell you on joining us.
Real life problems may fit in an hour, but may not.
There are so many resources on programming interviews that spending an hour or two during the week prior would pay off dividends in a candidates success rate.