Too unforgiving tests in JS: Use typeof to Check the Type of a Variable

The test regexes don’t allow for spaces before the parentheses, which is unnecessarily strict.

Affected page

https://www.freecodecamp.org/learn/javascript-algorithms-and-data-structures/debugging/use-typeof-to-check-the-type-of-a-variable

Your code

console.log (typeof seven);
console.log (typeof three);

Expected behavior

Same as:

console.log(typeof seven);
console.log(typeof three);

[lynxlynxlynx]

Neither syntax is incorrect, one is just less common. There is already wide support for being lax in tests like these. Most recently the discussion was in the previously linked #45575, where the core team weighed in as well. So the main thing that should be done in this bug is just to fix the tests. Other bugs should have their own issues.

[jeremylt]

Some people do it but it is really uncommon. Making the code readable to other people is part of getting hired. This just isn’t a thing that you see in production code. JS has a bunch of these little things that are technically possible but never used. There is a huge difference between bikeshedding on indentation or semicolons and going out of our way to support baffling, non-standard syntax that nobody uses in professional code.

We’re made notes about this sort of thing in the past so learners don’t get in the habit of writing technically correct but bizzaro code:

https://www.freecodecamp.org/learn/javascript-algorithms-and-data-structures/basic-javascript/access-array-data-with-indexes

Note: There shouldn’t be any spaces between the array name and the square brackets, like array [0]. Although JavaScript is able to process this correctly, this may confuse other programmers reading your code.

And all of our examples of using functions follow the basic convention in JS of not jamming extra spaces in there, from the beginning:

https://www.freecodecamp.org/learn/javascript-algorithms-and-data-structures/basic-javascript/write-reusable-javascript-with-functions

You can call or invoke this function by using its name followed by parentheses, like this: functionName();

I don’t see why we’d be obligated to support every single non-standard thing that a learner can imagine.