Simple Thought Exercise

Imagine you have a laundry basket full of freshly cleaned clothes

You have a bunch of different items of clothing to fold and put away

We will fold the clothes and sort them into separate baskets

Do we know the difference between these items of clothing?

What about these items of clothing?

Do we fold these the same way?

Depending on the item of clothing, we will fold it differently

if(item === 'pants') {
  // fold pants
} else if(item === 'shorts') {
  // fold shorts
} else if(item === 'skirt') {
  // fold skirt
} else if(item === 'socks') {
  // fold socks
} else if(item === 'shirt') {
  // fold dark shirt
}

Depending on who the item of clothing belongs to, we will sort it into a different basket

if(owner === 'dad') {
  // sort into dad's basket
} else if(owner === 'mom') {
  // sort into mom's basket
} else if(owner === 'sister') {
  // sort into sister's basket
} else if(owner === 'brother') {
  // sort into brother's basket
} else if(owner === 'me') {
  // sort into my basket
}

We will do the same thing for each item of clothing

shirts.forEach(shirt => fold(shirt));

The entire process might look something like this...

First, we decide how we are going to fold each item of clothing

const foldPants = pants => {
  // fold pants
};

const foldShorts = shorts => {
  // fold shorts
};

const foldSkirt = skirt => {
  // fold skirt
};

const foldSocks = socks => {
  // fold socks
};

const foldShirt = shirt => {
  // fold shirt
};

Next, we loop through each item of clothing and fold it

const foldedItems = items.forEach(item => {
  if(item === 'pants') {
    return foldPants(item);
  } else if(item === 'shorts') {
    return foldShorts(item);
  } else if(item === 'skirt') {
    return foldSkirt(item);
  } else if(item === 'socks') {
    return foldSocks(item);
  } else if(item === 'shirt') {
    return foldShirt(item);
  }
});

Finally, we loop through the folded clothing and put it in the correct basket

const sortedItems = foldedItems.forEach(item => {
  if(item.owner === 'dad') {
    dadBasket.add(item);
  } else if(item.owner === 'mom') {
    momBasket.add(item);
  } else if(item.owner === 'sister') {
    sisterBasket.add(item);
  } else if(item.owner === 'brother') {
    brotherBasket.add(item);
  } else if(item.owner === 'me') {
    myBasket.add(item);
  } 
});

🎉 We have just covered the four elements of programming! 🎉