Interviewing
Adam Barr's blog comments on Joel Spolsky's Guerilla Guide to Interviewing.
You get the idea. If as an interviewer you want to play the "you didn't clarify the question" game, it can be taken to as absurd an extreme as you like. If your goal is to prove you are smarter than the candidate, then knock yourself out. But if you are actually trying to hire the best people, using this question the way Spolsky describes won't tell you much of anything. '
That's a good point, but I'd also agree with Joel in that you want to know the candiate's basic approach to solving problems. Doesn't make sense to make much of the 'you didn't clarify' gotchas, but sometimes when the candidate doesn't ask for clarification, it's clear they may not have a fundamental instinct about approaching new/not previously solved technical problems. Not asking the right questions when tackling a tough problem or design will only lead to poor quality, missing use cases, and more work for others on the team later. I always thought the "Smart and Get things done" theme in Joel's piece was a helpful attribute to look for when hiring for startups.
Couple interview video clips from Microsoft that are interesting: Zoe Goldring & Gretchen Ledgard "interview questions are designed to be vague.. trying to get you to interact and and ask a lot of questions" and the Mock Whiteboard interview.
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