Maybe it's why I'm not a developer anymore, but my approach to a broken "w" key wouldn't be figuring out a workaround to using "while", but rather copying and pasting a "w" from somewhere else.
If someone's approach to a broken keyboard is some workaround instead of just asking for another keyboard it is a sign they handle problems very, very poorly.
^^^this is the correct answer. as a manager I want to know if my team is experiencing an obstacle that should be simple for me to fix for them. A managers job is to remove these kind of obstacles. I don't want them wasting time with poor workarounds.
My would be to (in order): jury-rig the keyboard to make it type "w" anyway, rebind it to some unused key, or just bring my own keyboard from home (if this would not be an interview but probational period setting).
It does, but having to click to type that one letter would be annoying as hell, and a last-ditch resort (after copy-pasting the letter itself from some text that contains it).