Programmers are confessing their sins to protest a broken job interview process

Wasn't this in reaction to the story that Homeland Security had asked the question to a programmer entering the US? I don't know how this was extrapolated to a broken job interview process.

there is experimental evidence suggests that the ad hoc approach is the worst approach.

why not have them write code, not in front of people.

give them a laptop and some time alone?

I've been paid to write code for 20 years or so and can't remember any of those friggin algorithms.

Being able to understand a problem enough to successfully google an answer is the most valuable skill for a programmer.

This is a tough subject. I don't believe deep understanding of algorithms and data structures is necessary for the vast majority of engineering tasks. Most (almost all) engineers can get by understanding complexity notation and a matrix comparing time/space complexity for various algorithms and data stuctures, no memorization required. And even that is overkill, as most of time the "natural" one suggested by a problem will suffice. For example, "I need to map keys to value, so I'll use the Python dict class" will get the job done with acceptable performance almost every time.

Whiteboard interviewing based on these things isn't useful unless the candidate is being considered for a position in which knowing these things is fundamentally necessary (e.g. they'll be responsible for developing new algorithms or squeezing out the last 10% of optimization available).

On the other hand, substituting requirements for having public code profiles, and the assortment of take-home projects, in-office projects, pair programming to solve a problem the company is facing (especially if unpaid) is just as bad, for different reasons.

And certainly not asking technical questions is problematic.

I just don't know what the solution is. It's one of those things where I know a bad interview when I see it.

Bubble sort the first sort I learned 17 years ago the 3rd week in my first year in CS at college. 4th week we learned quick sort and a bunch of other sorts that are faster aka forget everything you learned about it.