Counting Cards Challenge - let's compare our code!

1

Hello fellow coders,
What a nice day to have a discussion isn’t it? :sunny:

I just completed the Counting Cards Challenge but I feel like my code is really sloppy and it can be improved, that’s why I have several questions:

  • I added too many lines of code?
  • Is there something I could have done better?
  • Is the switch statement better than the else if statement?

Also I’m curious to see how you approached this challenge. What was your code like?
Here is mine:

var count = 0;

function cc(card) {
  // Only change code below this line
  if (card >= 2 && card <= 6) {
    count++;
  } else if (card >= 7 && card <= 9) {
    count+= 0;
  }
  else {
    count--;
  }
  
  if (count <= 0) {
    return count + " Hold";
  } else {
    return count + " Bet";
  }
  // Only change code above this line
}

// Add/remove calls to test your function.
// Note: Only the last will display
cc(2); cc('J'); cc(9); cc(2); cc(7);

Cheers,
Alexandru.

2

I used a switch instead of if-else, since there’s only a few values card can take, and there’s only 2 scenarios to consider: incrementing or decrementing count. There’s more lines, but I think writing this using if-else can get ugly quickly (like: (card == 10 || card == 'J' || card == 'Q' || ...))

function cc(card) {
  // Only change code below this line
  switch (card) {
    case 2:
    case 3:
    case 4:
    case 5:
    case 6:
      count++;
      break;
    case 10:
    case 'J':
    case 'Q':
    case 'K':
    case 'A':
      count--;
      break;
  }
  
  if (count > 0) {
    return count + " Bet";
  } else {
    return count + " Hold";
  }
  // Only change code above this line
}

EDIT: Also, I blurred your code since it’s a spoiler.

1 Like