Yeah, I guess, at some level this is satirizing that technical interviews almost demand golf code. When you're writing such a small program, there's an upper limit of how good "good code" can be. To look better than other candidates, you need to apply 'clever' (derogatory) strategies, where you solve it with a slightly more efficient solution. No one would care about this efficiency in a real-world scenario...
When you're writing such a small program, there's an upper limit of how good "good code" can be.
The funny thing is enough candidates flub getting a working solution that writing something that does what it's supposed to puts you in the upper 80% already