In general I'm also not a big fan of these interview assignments but I gotta say it probably heavily depends on how they're used. About a year ago I got my first Go job that way with little prior experience and it ended up being great.
Granted, my assignment was smaller and I knew they would get back to me. If I had been asked to develop a spreadsheet editor from first principles that would have been a major red flag.
Granted, my assignment was smaller and I knew they would get back to me. If I had been asked to develop a spreadsheet editor from first principles that would have been a major red flag.