P.s. I don't believe anyone actually fails fizz buzz.
It's not devs with > 3 years experience or even > 6 months. failing fizzbuzz. It's people _pretending_ to be devs with > 3 years experience. Or folks who started in programming years ago and drifted so far they can't get back to nuts and bolts. Or people who know the principles but can't express them. Or any number of other cases.
Like other folks have posted here in response, I've seen some really sad fizz buzzes in my day, often from people who had no business being near a computer let alone interviewing for a tech job, but somehow landed a phone screen.
And let's never forget the best/worst fizz-buzz ever: http://thedailywtf.com/articles/The-Fizz-Buzz-from-Outer-Spa...
I often read people say they'd be "insulted" if asked to do fizz-buzz, or would "walk out". I think that's an over-reaction - fair enough they need to make sure you're not useless and lying on your CV. As long as there's a more interesting follow-up question, I don't see the harm.
Out of 10, only 1 solved it well, 2-3 solved it acceptably (only edge case bugs), the rest never solved it, or had obvious bugs or code that would never pass peer review.
Of course, I could just be a shitty interviewer, but I always had a (changing) peer present during interviews, and I hope we were an honest enough company that they'd tell me if they thought I was.
You really don't realize how bad candidates can be until after you've interviewed dozens of them.
I was asked for my second job ever - on the phone - for commands that would list files in a directory, change directory, and create a symbolic link. I guess I've started doing that kind of prescreen now too
I implemented the thing, but with plus in place of multiplication. Before that, I realised I was struggling and asked the interviewer whether it was + or *, that was probably the moment he failed me.
