Inside the mind of snowmonkey...

As I said in the last post, I'd like to revisit some of the coding challenges on freeCodeCamp , and specificially, the Pomodoro timer . First, though, there isn't really a clear three-sentence description of the thing, so let's start there. Wikipedia says: The Pomodoro Technique is a time management method developed by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980s.[1] The technique uses a timer to break down work into intervals, traditionally 25 minutes in length, separated by short breaks. These intervals are named pomodoros, the plural in English of the Italian word pomodoro (tomato), after the tomato-shaped kitchen timer that Cirillo used as a university student. So often, folks addressing these challenges will build a mockup in HTML (often called a wireframe), then simply start wiring the bits together. And doing that works, at least in principle: the first half of the assertion tests that freeCodeCamp uses are checking that given elements, with given ID's, are ...

I have been working on a number of the coding challenges over on freeCodeCamp , and they are great -- a good mix of front-end HTML, javascript, libraries, back-end tech. It is good stuff, and very comprehensive. Hundreds of lessons, and challenges in each area, a great support forum, hints if you need... all sorts of fun. And very conducive to questionable coding. I remember when jQuery first appeared on the scene. John had a very clear vision in mind as to its purpose and place: an easier, unified way of communicating and interacting with the DOM. And it was good. But many folks who had never had the opportunity or desire to get into web programming discovered in this an easy way to do a LOT of cool things. Novice or advanced, we were using this great, lightweight, exciting new library to add all kinds of bells and whistles to web pages. Wireframes and prototypes were being cobbled together quickly, because we COULD. There may have been some spaghetti code happening in th...