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No - it shows how you think.
It's not something you have probably ever thought about before, so it shows them something of how you approach problems and look for solutions. Do you just go "I dunno" and leave it to someone else, or do you try to work it out logically. "Because manholes are round" is not bad, provided it's quick.
But yes, questions like this are rubbish.
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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It's not different to asking why Polo's have a hole in the middle..
I'm sorry but if you're running a software company and you're looking for software developers, ask questions relevant to the job.
If you want to play games or try and catch people out, then I don't really want to work for you 
How do you know so much about swallows? Well, you have to know these things when you're a king, you know.
modified 31-Aug-21 21:01pm.
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I totally agree... if I was in an interview, and I thought they were trying to trick me, I'd leave.
I have no desire to work with a group of asses.
If it's not broken, fix it until it is
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Kevin Marois wrote: I have no desire to work with a group of asses.
Sort of restricts the number of companies you can work for though.
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Brent Jenkins wrote: If you want to play games or try and catch people out,
Keep in mind of course that such people, at best, simply are not very good at giving interviews.
Of course at worst they are ignorant and arrogant.
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One interview I had back in 2001 really stands out for me..
Interviewer: Why do you want to work here?
Me: I'm interested in mobile development
Interviewer: No you're not
Me: Huh?
Interviewer: You're only saying that because you know that's what we do
Me: No, I've worked on PalmOS and WindowsCE apps in my spare time..
Interviewer: No you haven't, you're just saying that because you want a job here
Me: Not now I don't..
I'd released apps for PalmOS beforehand, one gaining over 100,000 total downloads which was pretty good for a time without app stores as such.
Weird how some people just seem to be on the offensive in interviews from the get go. I can only imagine how much talent these guys lose businesses over the years.
How do you know so much about swallows? Well, you have to know these things when you're a king, you know.
modified 31-Aug-21 21:01pm.
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Brent Jenkins wrote: Weird how some people just seem to be on the offensive in interviews from the get go
Keeping in mind of course that a technical interviewer's strength isn't as a people person, so the weird ones are the ones that are actually good at it.
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When I was in the Marines, every quarter my unit would meritoriously promote one Marine to NCO. A board of 4 or 5 NCO's in the unit was formed and candidates where brought in and asked a series of questions. The board then voted and one person was promoted.
One guy would always ask something totally stupid like "How many holes are there in a C-Ration cracker?" (IIRC there are 54).
The NCO's in the board had 3 or 4 questions they could each ask to evaluate the candidate. I finally asked him "Why don't you ask some relevant questions like 'Why do you want to be a corporal?', or 'How would you handle a situation like ...?'" He said "I like to see them sweat!"
That manhole cover question is no different. It told the interviewer no real info about the person, and only made the poor guy sweat, and probably made him think "Wow, now I feel stupid". The interviewee is already under pressure and nervous.
Want to see how someone thinks? Give them a problem and a white board.
If it's not broken, fix it until it is
modified 27-Mar-15 9:54am.
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More probably than not it doesn't show how you think but that you have heard this question before. And honestly who hasn't?
The good thing about pessimism is, that you are always either right or pleasently surprised.
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OriginalGriff wrote: No - it shows how you think.
The interviewer got the question from the internet and that they themselves didn't know that answer either until they read it on the internet. And if an interviewee knows the answer then it is much more likely that the interviewee got the answer from the same place rather than figuring it out. If the interviewer thinks otherwise then that only demonstrates that the interviewer isn't very smart.
Wouldn't demonstrate much about the interviewee at all except that they were researching interview questions rather than new technologies.
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Oh the engineer in me is cringing. 
Mongo: Mongo only pawn... in game of life.
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Not a stupid interview question, but somewhat unusual interviewer behaviour:
During an interview I faced way back in 1995, the panel had three interviewers. They gave me a sheet of paper, and gave me a puzzle to solve. Immediately, all the three interviewers started peering deeply on every stroke/character/number that I wrote on that paper. It was very difficult to solve this with three pairs of eyes watching each mistake/misstep I took.
Did not get selected.
Learnt how not to conduct an interview.
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I had the same question once!
It's to test your ability to think outside of the box, I guess.
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Kevin Marois wrote: I was once asked why manhole covers are round.
I give an outside of the box answer:
"Because manhole covers are heavy, and to move it, it is much easier to roll a round manhole cover than a square one."
I've also been asked, "if you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?"
Normally I answer:
"Red-Black Tree"
But if I were going for a compiler writer position I would answer:
"Abstract-Syntax Tree"
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I have no desire to work for a company who's interview process is about trying to trick me or make me sweat.
If it's not broken, fix it until it is
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Kevin Marois wrote: make me sweat
If you're a true engineer, sweating should be uncontrollable and come naturally 
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Manhole covers are round because a^2 + b^2 = c^2. Really.
The language is JavaScript. that of Mordor, which I will not utter here
This is Javascript. If you put big wheels and a racing stripe on a golf cart, it's still a f***ing golf cart.
"I don't know, extraterrestrial?"
"You mean like from space?"
"No, from Canada."
If software development were a circus, we would all be the clowns.
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I was asked something like "How many people are there flying in planes right now?"
I answered "325,761"
The interviewer was stumped!
PooperPig - Coming Soon
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Cool. Looks addictive. Must stay away.
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Yeah, get some work done. For once. 
I mean, with a name like Slacker007...
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Downloaded by five million people who would no doubt look at the Sega Master System or Nintendo NES and sneer, no doubt.
With the exception of Physics games (where the processing power wasn't available), there isn't a game that's played, nowadays, that isn't a variant of games from 8-bit systems; and some of them even look like they come from an 8-bit system (QED) (Yes, I noticed that the physics is slightly better).
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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is just one opportunity![^].
Cheers! 
"I had the right to remain silent, but I didn't have the ability!"
Ron White, Comedian
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Couple of days ago we had a candidate over for a "Junior Developer" role and a couple of my colleagues interviewed him. After an hour and a half they got back and proclaimed that the guy was no good because he couldn't solve a string reversal problem. Now, that's not the only thing that caused his "demise" obviously it was more of other things like not being passionate about software development in general, not having done a job long enough, not having any side projects to speak and appearing to not even try to solve the problem given during the interview.
What I find funny is these interviewer colleagues of mine really didn't do any preparation or due diligence to interview the candidate, 10 minutes before the interview they were scrambling on websites trawling for questions they can ask. Now that in my opinion is the failure of the interviewer just as much as that of the candidate to prepare properly. I have been to better interviews than this, where the interview lasts for around as much and longer if needed and they assess a lot of soft skills like communication, attitude etc and then some technical grilling on a whiteboard. The process is more two way than this case, the focus is not on solving a problem that you would never actually need to solve from scratch in real life anyway. Why do you think Google was invented? (not talking about "copy-n-pastable" solutions, just general searching for ideas etc.)
What is your opinion on this? Do you think asking "beaten to death" programming questions in an interview is just a lazy interviewing attitude because the interviewer couldn't be bothered to prepare properly? Is asking such questions even a point here?
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