Whiteboard\Paper Interviews
Roy Osherove blogs about “Pen and Paper” interviews.
Personally, I don't like paper or whiteboard programming: My handwriting is not very neat, and I find it hard to write in straight lines on a whiteboard. However, it is a good skill to acquire, since it is used very widely in interviews. It is good to practice writing simple/short programs on a piece of paper before attending an interview. You can always ask to do a test in front of a computer (Tip: why not bring your own laptop? This way you could also bring an example of your coding, and guide the interview towards past written code, if necessary)
Although I agree that pen and paper interviews is not the best way to test technical capabilities (I hate programming “tests“ that are not taken not in front of a computer) they can be used for some purposes:
1. To test basic capabilities: Does a person write comments in his code, adherence to naming and other guidelines and best practices.
2. For writing very short programs: (e.g., implement a singleton class)
3. To ask - What's wrong with this code snippet?
4. For a first screening - to make sure the candidate has the minimal requirements. However, I would make sure the test doesn't check stuff a developer doesn't need to memorize and could find in a second using intellisense and an object browser, but check coding skills in general.
Also, sometimes a test is done without a computer for practical reasons: the interview is conducted in a room where there is no development environment, such as a conference room, or a HR office.
So, although I would opt for a computer test if I were interviewing someone else, I would still prepare for whiteboard/paper interviews since they aren't going to disappear.