As someone spending a large amount of their week doing interviews these days, I really empathize with the spirit of this article. I've expressed an annoyance very similar to this one many times before - it's astounding how many nominally senior programmers are not adept at manipulating text.
If you've been writing a lot of software, I would expect you to be good at actually putting the characters into a file and moving them around therein. I would be very suspicious of someone who claimed to be a master carpenter but couldn't drive a nail cleanly. Muscle memory is a real thing, and the mechanics of a task matter. What is the point of all our fetishization of editors and keyboards and such if not to smooth the transition between brain and paper?
This isn't even always a matter of candidates operating in an unfamiliar environment. Even on their own personal computers, in the editor they presumably use for work, I see a lot of flailing.
This sounds like you're suffering from interview burn out to me. If you have a condescending voice towards interviewees outside interviews then it is usually a manifestation of how you perceive them in the interviews.
Do yourself and the candidates a favor and step back from it to allow yourself to lose such prejudices.
If you've been writing a lot of software, I would expect you to be good at actually putting the characters into a file and moving them around therein. I would be very suspicious of someone who claimed to be a master carpenter but couldn't drive a nail cleanly. Muscle memory is a real thing, and the mechanics of a task matter. What is the point of all our fetishization of editors and keyboards and such if not to smooth the transition between brain and paper?
This isn't even always a matter of candidates operating in an unfamiliar environment. Even on their own personal computers, in the editor they presumably use for work, I see a lot of flailing.