I think there’s another group: people who can come up with solid code by using search tools.
I code, sure, but I will never come up with a custom solution for any non trivial problem. I know where to find appropriate solutions (the best ones) because I’m aware of what I don’t know (I read a lot of tech books). You cannot test this in the classic tech interview (because I would googling 75% of the time).
The final result is: you want good code or not? How I come up with it should be secondary.
I code, sure, but I will never come up with a custom solution for any non trivial problem. I know where to find appropriate solutions (the best ones) because I’m aware of what I don’t know (I read a lot of tech books). You cannot test this in the classic tech interview (because I would googling 75% of the time).
The final result is: you want good code or not? How I come up with it should be secondary.