fCC - JavaScript Algorithms and Data Structures

Continuing my journey through freeCodeCamp's curriculum, I finished their JavaScript course.

Course structure

JavaScript was split five sections with the following certification projects

• Building a Palindrom Checker
• Building a Roman Numeral Converter
• Building a Telephone Number Validator
• Build a Cash Register
• Build a Pokemon Search App

A lot of hours went into this. Several of the exercises had over a hundred steps. On some of the more difficult topics you'd be lucky to do more than a few steps in an hour, especially if taking the time to fully understand and experiment.

JavaScript is quite forgiving compared to lower level languages like C when it comes to type and memory management. However it has a huge range of functions to learn and a big part of it is understanding the HTML document object model.

My solutions

Palindrome Checker

Roman Numeral Converter

Telephone Number Validator

Cash Register

Pokemon Search App

Thoughts on JavaScript Algorithms and Data Structures

Moving to JavaScript from HTML and CSS is a significant step change in complexity. The freeCodeCamp exercises are good, but they haven't quite nailed their difficulty progression. Some exercises are fairly straightforward while others are very complex. One challenge involves building a spreadsheet app and that gets very tough. Mainly due to working with cell reference and dealing with a lot of 'method chaining'

But, apart from a few frustrating points, it was fun!

With JavaScript, it's really important to build your own projects, it takes quite a bit of practice to get used to working with objects and arrays and the many built in methods that exist.

As with responsive web design you get a certificate to keep.