If the interviewer wants to see whether you understand the software engineering process, don’t start talking about bit tricks. If the interviewer wants to see whether you can code, don’t start talking about architecture, specification and testing.

So, my posting may or may not be the right answer to an interview question – it depends on what the question is!

However, from the interviewer side, failing a candidate simply because they misunderstood what you are getting at in your question is probably not a good way to hire the best developers. Of course, if you stop them and clarify the question, but they still insist on talking about something else, then that is a problem.

When I asked such a question about bits to a developer I want to hire, the answer I give to the ones proposing some “bit-slicing code” is : “a good developer is not supposed to answer such a challenge but to concentrate on architecture, specifications and testing” …