I am not convinced that throwing INTERCAL at a candidate is a good way to roll. ;)
But seriously, I think that you are spot-on with this approach. Interviewing, done effectively, is about getting a fleshed out idea of the capabilities of the candidate, not just getting correct answers. Perhaps the best response to give or expect, when the interview gets stuck, is "I don't know, but..." Even on questions that aren't coding questions, these are often good responses: "I don't know, but [this is how I would find out]" or "I don't know, but [this is a topic or problem that I believe is related]" .
For what it's worth, my 'worst solutions' always involve a guy with a van driving around hassling people in person. Somehow people never accept my proposed solution, so I haven't been able to test it.
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I am not convinced that throwing INTERCAL at a candidate is a good way to roll. ;)
But seriously, I think that you are spot-on with this approach. Interviewing, done effectively, is about getting a fleshed out idea of the capabilities of the candidate, not just getting correct answers. Perhaps the best response to give or expect, when the interview gets stuck, is "I don't know, but..." Even on questions that aren't coding questions, these are often good responses: "I don't know, but [this is how I would find out]" or "I don't know, but [this is a topic or problem that I believe is related]" .
For what it's worth, my 'worst solutions' always involve a guy with a van driving around hassling people in person. Somehow people never accept my proposed solution, so I haven't been able to test it.