Out of curiosity: where do you come in, in the interviewing process? I don't have direct experience, but I frequently hear that very trivial programming questions weed out more than 50% of applicants to programming jobs.
I am in the middle; our candidates are screened by HR (a process I'm not super fond of), then they come to me for various levels of tech/cultural fit interviewing. Then my comments are forwarded for final approval. Generally, if I say "hire", they hire. If I say "run", they run.
And yes - trivial programming questions do weed out a fair number of candidates. However... it's tricky. A trivial programming question can look different to many different people, especially if they have varying skill levels and depending on their level of comfort in interviews.
I try to give people the benefit of the doubt. If one question stumps them, I'll try to gauge their understanding with another similar (but different enough) question. If that doesn't work... sometimes I'll give them another shot, but usually I'll start winding the interview down.
