Every creative person goes through phases where they question their commitment to their work, and software developers are no different. Maybe a recent project failed, maybe a simple app turned into a beast, or maybe you’ve been up to your eyeballs in debugging for weeks and you’re wondering, “Why do I do this again?” During these times of disrelish, we tend to forget about the spark of excitement that got us coding in the first place. We become so focused on the excruciating details of whatever issue we’re fighting with that we fail to see the magic we create when we write software.

A fun little Javascript game was forwarded around my office recently, and I had a great time revisiting my elementary programming skills while defeating each of its levels. It’s called “You Can’t Javascript Under Pressure”. I would recommend that everyone take the next 10-30 minutes out of their life to check it out. While I found the game relatively easy, I figured it might be nice to share my solutions with the web. This game is great practice for the elementary-level software developer, and working through tough problems with a cheat sheet can be an excellent way to learn new topics. Even if you don’t need any help solving these problems, it can always be fun to see solutions that are different than your own. So, without any further ado, here are my solutions to each of the 5 levels:

My memory is terrible. It always has been. When left to my own devices, I forget names, addresses, appointments, book titles and pretty much everything in between. As such, I’m always looking for a better way to keep my thoughts organized. I’ve tried a variety of organizational methods to combat this problem. As a student, I used to keep a daily agenda where I would religiously write down my assignments and due dates. This kept me well-organized, but I always felt limited by the finite amount of space the planner gave me for each day. The pre-designed boxes left no room for notes, thoughts or events. There was no way for me to easily remember the title of the obscure film I had heard about that day, or take notes on the interesting computer science concept I had just stumbled across.

Here’s a neat little hack. Have you ever needed a place to write something down, only to realize you don’t have a piece of paper around? Have you ever fumbled to open your native text editor, only to forget the great idea or the telephone number you just had in your head in the process? This hack will create a simple text editor in your browser that you can bookmark and pop open whenever you need. Set it on your bookmarks toolbar and you’ll find yourself using it all the time.