All of the companies I have applied to have asked that I spend several hours solving programming problems before giving me an offer. And why shouldn't they? My experience as an interviewer has been that such great things as "decades of industry experience designing and implementing very complex systems", or a Ph.D, or a 4.0 GPA from a top school are only very loosely correlated with whether or not a candidate can code his way out of a paper bag. As such, it is reasonable to think that there is a profit to be made filtering out the >80% of candidates who cannot code their way out of paper bags.
I've never been particularly desperate or unemployed (though I did not have a job while I was in university), and I think that the few minutes necessary to solve any of these problems is a reasonable use of time if it can signal a potential employer that you are more likely to be competent than a huge majority of their applicants. You are correct to say that nepotism is a better way of getting places, but I don't think it is reasonable to expect everyone to do it.
How is it possible that someone with "decades of industry experience designing and implementing very complex systems" can't code their way out of a paper bag?
Also, if > 80% of the programmers can't code, who the hack has been employing them all these years?
I don't know how people manage to get "decades of industry experience designing and implementing very complex systems" without being able to program. I have only run into a couple such people, but I suspect that is because we get very few applicants with that kind of employment history.
I don't think >80% of programmers can't code. I think that programmers who can't code are much more likely to be applying for jobs than programmers who can code, which makes the pool of applicants look much worse than the pool of all programmers would look.
The 80% who can't code are hired by companies that don't test their skills, and there are lots of companies like that. Then they realize how much they suck, and lay them off whenever they get a chance. Most of these "bad" programmers write crappy (often insane) code that then good programmers have to deal with. Many of them delegate. I've even seen one guy outsource his work.
Most of the programmers looking for a job suck. If you're truly good and have a reputation, you don't need to interview (unless you want to work for a very specific niche where you don't have connections).
I've never been particularly desperate or unemployed (though I did not have a job while I was in university), and I think that the few minutes necessary to solve any of these problems is a reasonable use of time if it can signal a potential employer that you are more likely to be competent than a huge majority of their applicants. You are correct to say that nepotism is a better way of getting places, but I don't think it is reasonable to expect everyone to do it.