Horrible Instruction

#1

I have no doubt that those who put this program of instruction together know exactly what they are doing. They all are most likely top-notch in their fields of computer discipline. The major problem I keep running into is the total lack of clarity in expressing what the programmers know, so that those of us who are trying to learn can understand just what it is that is necessary in order to be successful.

Case and point. While trying to learn and understand what a function is and how to set them up, I come across this statement: “On line 7, after the equals sign, call the function timesTwo with any parameter you want.” It’s the last part of this statement, coupled with the Hint, “To call the function, we just use the name of the function. We then put in a value for the number parameter. eg. timesTwo(8);” that leaves me oblivious as to what is expected. “Any parameter [that I] want”? What does that mean?

Anyway, after several frustrating hours of trying to decipher what the creators of this site are trying to convey, I’ve decided to move on. There has to be a better way to learn than spend an inordinate amount to time filling in blanks that should not exist in the first place. I wish you the best.

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#2

Afaik the exercise just wants you to do stuff like this:

var newNumber = timesTwo(42);
console.log(newNumber);

where instead of 42 you could have chosen any number. So really simple stuff that should just show that you can use a function to compute a value an actually use it instead of just printing it to the console. Ok the usage here is again to print it to the console but you could as well use the returned number in any other statement as well.
But anyway could use post the link or number of the exercise so that one can look if all these technical terms we’re really not introduced yet?

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#3

I agree. I passed the HTML and CSS with no or very little problems (good instructor), but JavaScript instructions are hard to understand (bad instructor). Im pretty sure, that before releasing JavaScript course, nobody didnt try to make it easier for newbies.
I tried w3schools.com, and it looks much more clear with tons of exercises.

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