Whiteboard coding during interviews

I recently responded to a writer I follow on Mastodon and Bluesky who was looking for input for an article she was planning to write about interviews for embedded systems positions.  Since I enjoy her writing and I have loads of experience with embedded systems, I responded to her request.

This got me remembering some of the questions I've been asked during interviews.  One of the questions I dislike the most is when I'm asked to write code on a whiteboard to solve some problem.  I generally enjoy coding and the problems are often interesting but coding on a whiteboard is so different from writing code on computer using a good editor that I've grown to hate it.  I'd almost rather go back to the bad old days of having to use a keypunch to generate cards as source for my program.  When programming I like to start with an outline of the program and fill it in slowly which is nearly impossible when stuck with a more linear environment such as whiteboard or a sheet of paper.

I've had two memorable experiences responding to requests to code on a whiteboard.  The first was the most absurd question I believe I have ever been asked in a job interview.  Apparently the company I was interviewing with had guidelines for technical interviews and the engineer asking the questions was hellbent on sticking to these guidelines.  He asked me to write an assembly language program for him.  I asked which assembly languages he was familiar with since I was comfortable with about 5 at the time.  Once I discovered that we had no assemblers in common, I figured there was little point in me writing a program in a language he wasn't familiar with but he insisted on me completing this task so he could check it off on his interview form.  In addition to it being silly to write a program which cannot be evaluated, it's also ridiculous trying to write a meaningful assembly language program on the tiny whiteboards available in cubicles.  Apparently I passed muster as I ended up getting the job.  During a 2.5 years I was at that company, I realized that my poor opinion of the engineer who had interviewed me was entirely warranted.

The second whiteboard coding experience which came to mind ended far more positively.  I was asked to solve a problem in C but ended up needing to keep adding lines which is no problem on a computer but presents a huge obstacle when stuck with a whiteboard and marker.  I managed to come up with an incomplete solution before they called time on me.  Once I got home from the interview, I was able to quickly code up the solution on my computer at home and emailed it to the VP of Engineering I had been interviewing with at the time.  He was so impressed that I had followed through with solving the problem that I was offered the job and ended up staying at that company for 9.5 years.  I still hated the initial request for whiteboard coding but was pleased that it resulted in me getting the job.

I'm hoping that the days of being asked to code on whiteboards are relegated to the past.  To tell the truth, since I'm at my last job before retirement. it won't have a huge impact on my life either way but I hate the thought of others being subjected to this absurd practice.