> Is this why the applicants I see that are fresh out of college
> with their shiny new computer science degrees can't seem to
> code their way out of a wet paper bag?
Well, there you go! Apparently, your wet paper bag has no
"detect a palendrome" exit. While you're installing such an
egress to your soggy dead-tree satchel, you could also provide
similar "write a binary search" or "write your own linked-list
implementation" escape hatches... :)
-tkc