> Seems more like a test on random React minutiae.
It is more like test on whether or not you can figure out random React minutiae (with Google/ChatGPT, if needed) when presented with a need. Which isn't a bad approximation for how well you will do at finding any random minutiae as needs present themselves. React-based development doesn't require much original thought — the vast majority of the job really is just figuring out the minutiae of your dependencies to fit your circumstantial need.
For fun, I asked ChatGPT for an answer and it gave a perfectly good one back without hesitation. Even if you had no idea what React was beyond knowing it is a library for developing web components, you should still be able to answer that particular question with ease.
I was assuming that particular interview was not open ChatGPT. If all you want to test for is can you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth, type that into ChatGPT, and then read it to me, yeah, it seems fine.
Why would one random part of the interview disallow ChatGPT when it is otherwise accepted for answering other random React minutiae?
Because humans have to interact with other humans in conversations, and if you can't read social cues as to when something is and isn't acceptable, you're boned. I have trouble with that, so it's not surprising to me when others do as well.
When you're in a work meeting, do you just put ChatGPT up on one laptop and Claude on another and just sit back for 30 minutes to an hour?
It was deemed acceptable to use ChatGPT to discover the minutiae of useState and useEffect. What is special about createRoot that makes it off limits?