> Nope, I think lots of people perform 'low skill' in a whiteboard scenario that are not. And the arrogance of their interviewers gets them on HN making very bold claims about other people's skill levels without consideration for the scenarios involved.

This is it, in a nutshell.

In all my years of interviewing candidates, I've never run into the mythical experienced developer who doesn't know anything about programming. Yet according to HN lore, there are hordes of them out there.

My theory is that the only thing there are indeed hordes of, is experienced developers who can be made to look dumb by subjecting them to whiteboard puzzles, algorithm trivia and other such questions which are completely unrelated to the job performance.