Would you ask a violinist to draw the chords they would play on a whiteboard, or would you hand them a violin?

No but I'd have an architect give me plans for a house written out. I'm not hiring artists I'm hiring engineer's. I'm not hiring your for your gorgeous code in x language, I'm hiring for problem solving skills and communication. And I do let people use computer or whiteboard, computer tends to more complicated logistically (wifi, preference of ide, power, logins, etc). A whiteboard only fails to work if I don't have new pens.

Software is far more art than you think, and rigid, formulaic thinking can be a detriment to good problem solving skills. Especially when solving something you can't just look up on the internet.

If your engineers aren't writing clean, readable, maintainable code that solves problems as simply as possible (ie, gorgeous), I'm not sure your hiring practices are doing you any good.

I was responding to these lines:

I'm not hiring artists I'm hiring engineer's. I'm not hiring your for your gorgeous code in x language, I'm hiring for problem solving skills and communication.

I agree with the second half (problem solving and communication) but take some issue with the the way you dismissed the art of it all. Maybe we have different ideas of what an artist is?

I tend to think of software in more blue-collar terms myself, perhaps more like a carpenter (who has to consider more than just aesthetics, but certainly can't ignore them) than a violinist, but my earlier comment was just continuing the established metaphor. Either way, I get the sense we agree more than we disagree here.

For Godsakes drop the architect - sw developer analogy already ! Its broken in so many ways. A developer must be able to produce code that works - compiles and runs and solves the problem at hand.

Bonus points for making code reusable, reliable, readable, testable, functional or what-the-heck-ever-able.

Unless you write code and run and compile it, there's nothing to be discussed.

> Would you ask a violinist to draw the chords they would play on a whiteboard, or would you hand them a violin?

The violin is not generally considered chordal instrument. While you can technically pluck all the strings at once, or bow two strings at once, it's most often used for melodic and not harmonic parts. ;)

You would of course, you can do the exact same questions on a whiteboard with a shared computer. In my experience of doing either, some people are better at one or the other, but the challenge is essentially the same.