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JavaScript JavaScript Foundations Arrays Methods: Part 1

Thomas Barnwell
Thomas Barnwell
1,951 Points
Posted by Thomas Barnwell
Thomas Barnwell
1,951 Points

Badly written challenges in 'Arrays' module of JavaScript Foundations

Here is the challenge as written: "On about line 19, use a method on the 'spareWords' to set 'lastWord' to be the last word of the 'spareWords' array whilst simultaneously removing it from the end of the array."

What you mean is: "Use a method on the 'spareWords' array that removes the last value in the array, and assign the value to the variable 'lastWord'.

The original text is ambiguous. The text "to set 'lastWord' to be the last word of the 'spareWords' array", can mean two things:

  1. To add 'lastWord' at the end of the 'spareWords' array.
  2. To assign the value of the last item in the 'spareWords' array to the variable 'lastWord'

There is a similarly confusing challenge in the same module about "setting 'firstWord' to be the first word in the 'spareWords' array."

index.html 
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
  <head>
    <title> JavaScript Foundations: Arrays</title>
    <style>
      html {
        background: #FAFAFA;
        font-family: sans-serif;
      }
    </style>
  </head>
  <body>
    <h1>JavaScript Foundations</h1>
    <h2>Arrays: Methods Part 1</h2>
    <script>
      var spareWords = ["The","chimney","sweep's","dog"];
      var saying = ["quick", "brown", "fox", "jumps", "over", "the", "lazy"];
      var firstWord = spareWords.shift();
      var lastWord = spareWords.;
      saying;
      saying;
    </script>
  </body>
</html>
Marcus Parsons
Marcus Parsons
15,719 Points

Hey Thomas Barnwell,

That course does have some ambiguities and is a little more confusing than the updated JavaScript Basics course taught by Dave McFarland. I don't know if they are going to switch out the JavaScript Basics course for the JavaScript Foundations course on the Front End Web Development Track or not.