If I were with you I'd not necessarily write anything.
Id put out my fingers 3 characters wide to the first substring and step through the rest of it in 3 char 'spans' with my fingers. I'd say "extract each substring, put it into a map with that substring as the key and either 1 as the value if it wasn't already present, or if it was, increment the value"
I'd probably not bother mentioning how to extract the results unless asked.
If someone said that to me it would show the solution, and I'd be 100% happy.
I'd assume that they could then render that into code - perhaps that would be a mistaken assumption though but in my experience solving the core problem is the thing I'm interested in, not the syntax. But those with more experience may say the former doesn't always imply the latter, and the code needs to be shown.
The translation to code is important. I have seen people who can describe a solution like that but when they come to write it as code struggle with managing simple mutability/immutability, scope, iteration, and conditional execution concerns. Better basic ability tests include a problem that requires an explicit nested iteration, because some people seem to struggle juggling two loop contexts in their head at once.
What I struggle to understand is why this sort of thing still serves as a useful weed-out screen in our industry, even for people whose resumes indicate masters degrees and multiple years of experience in development organizations. But experience shows that there really are people who are ‘faking it’.
Id put out my fingers 3 characters wide to the first substring and step through the rest of it in 3 char 'spans' with my fingers. I'd say "extract each substring, put it into a map with that substring as the key and either 1 as the value if it wasn't already present, or if it was, increment the value"
I'd probably not bother mentioning how to extract the results unless asked.
If someone said that to me it would show the solution, and I'd be 100% happy.
I'd assume that they could then render that into code - perhaps that would be a mistaken assumption though but in my experience solving the core problem is the thing I'm interested in, not the syntax. But those with more experience may say the former doesn't always imply the latter, and the code needs to be shown.