Despite having a family not much spare time, I also like the take-home approach.
But any time take-home tasks come up on HN, there are always people here complaining about it and even demanding to be paid for their time.
I get that it doesn't suit everyone, but nothing does. Coming up with an approach that works for the company and candidates is really hard - as evidenced by the many, many threads on this subject here on HN.
Perhaps the best compromise would perhaps be to permit the candidate to perform the task there and then or take it home, but this may require more of a commitment from the interviewer, if they then need to additionally devise tasks to be completed in a shorter time.
But any time take-home tasks come up on HN, there are always people here complaining about it and even demanding to be paid for their time.
I get that it doesn't suit everyone, but nothing does. Coming up with an approach that works for the company and candidates is really hard - as evidenced by the many, many threads on this subject here on HN.
Perhaps the best compromise would perhaps be to permit the candidate to perform the task there and then or take it home, but this may require more of a commitment from the interviewer, if they then need to additionally devise tasks to be completed in a shorter time.