I should be clearer. They didn't specifically reject me for that. There was just a sense that the interview wasn't going well from that point forward. They may just have felt that their request was clear and my response was smart-assed, and in truth that is probably fair.
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How does a rejection like that work in practice? Was that the question the interview hinged on?
A reasonable interviewer could just say "Alright, now can you do it without using the standard library?".
I should be clearer. They didn't specifically reject me for that. There was just a sense that the interview wasn't going well from that point forward. They may just have felt that their request was clear and my response was smart-assed, and in truth that is probably fair.