Stuck on this question! Javascript..

When declaring a variable in JavaScript, inside any scope, the best practice is to declare the variable at the beginning of the scope block.

Any value assignment to that variable can happen later on, when it's necessary.

Currently, var status = "I'll close when I'm ready."; is doing both the declaration and the assignment on the same line in the same place which isn't the beginning of the scope block (in this case the beginning of the function). But the JavaScript compiler (interpreter) sees that as two statements — the declaration and the value assignment.

Split the declaration and the value assignment into two statements, and move the declaration to the top of the function, leaving the assignment where it is.

You do that because the compiler is going to do this anyway, and you want to avoid confusion. This is something that's called variable hoisting.

function someFunc () {
  // something happens here
  var someVar = "some value"; // The compiler sees this as: var someVar; someVar = "some value";
}

// The declaration is hoisted to the top of the appropriate scope during the compile time, but the value assignment happens during the execution of the code so the code (as far as the compiler is concerned) becomes:

function someFunc () {
  var someVar; // Declaration hoisted to the top of the function
  // something happens here
  someVar = "some value"; // value assignment stays where it was originally
}

As I mentioned, this can cause confusion, so it's best to write the code the way the compiler is going to see it.