Discussion on question by Graviton: Programmers who are highly recommended, but cannot handle paper test programming question

Hate to be counterfactual, but... did you try allowing him to use an IDE? Some people freeze up because they don't keep syntax at their fingers. The company I'm at uses the HackerRank website, which gives an intellisense-type sandbox for phone interviews, but in-person, there's no reason not to sit them in front of an environment. But eventually they have to be able to program, and yes, it's a problem. Obligatory classic post: blog.codinghorror.com/why-cant-programmers-program When I run into this, I just pass, and tell others "He might be good, but he didn't prepare."

@Dan I won't lie, if I was asked to write code on actual paper I expect I would likely fail the test. I've been a full time C developer for most of a decade but in that time I can't say I've learned to write legibly enough to read back anything I just wrote. If given a featureless text editor (think notepad) I expect I would be fine. But hand writing I doubt I'd get a single answer correct. Additionally having the text be fixed width and line up correctly makes it much easier to read than scrawled handwriting