Sure, and there's a way to test the ability to ask questions that isn't some "gotcha" type question.
As in interviewer you can just say "the specifications aren't clear, what questions would you might want to ask to clarify them?".
It's not like in the day to day work you go around defining specifications for every tiny function - the default specification are clear from the work environment.
Let's say you had to implement a "find dups in this array" at work, you probably won't go around collecting requirements for that, so asking that in an interview and having the silly dance of "Oh, the interviewee didn't ask if the array fits in memory or not" is silly imo - and doesn't show anything other than whether the candidate memorized the need to ask that or not.
and like I said before, fuzzy specification are more suitable for the system/product design part, and can also be part of the coding part, but they shouldn't appear as some "gotcha".
> As in interviewer you can just say "the specifications aren't clear, what questions would you might want to ask to clarify them?".
I do say that, yes. Not necessarily with those words, but I tell interviewees that they are free to ask questions and in fact recommend that they do rather than they go start coding immediately and accidentaly solve the wrong problem. (Heck! Some people solve a harder problem than we intended to ask from them!)
It's not like in the day to day work you go around defining specifications for every tiny function - the default specification are clear from the work environment.
Let's say you had to implement a "find dups in this array" at work, you probably won't go around collecting requirements for that, so asking that in an interview and having the silly dance of "Oh, the interviewee didn't ask if the array fits in memory or not" is silly imo - and doesn't show anything other than whether the candidate memorized the need to ask that or not.
and like I said before, fuzzy specification are more suitable for the system/product design part, and can also be part of the coding part, but they shouldn't appear as some "gotcha".