My problem with freeCodeCamp - Roman Numeral Converter

1

Tell us what’s happening:
Why are the “helpful hints” for the challenge so different to code solutions given?

I’ve spent a while typing out the code below (my fault), but felt there must be a better way.

Looking at even the basic solution, its so elegant yet there is no where that tells you how to write elegant code.

I guess I just want to rant.

But also want to ask, where can I learn about writing good code and coming up with elegant solutions?

Your code so far

function convertToRoman(num) {
  var numArr=[];
  var romArr=[];
  numArr=num.toString().split("");
  
  var ones=numArr[numArr.length-1];
  var romOnes=0; 
  if (ones==0) {
    romOnes="";
  } else if (ones>0 & ones<4) {
    romOnes="I";
    for (i=0; i<ones-1; i++) {
      romOnes = romOnes + "I";
    }
  } else if (ones==4) {
    romOnes="IV";
  } else if (ones==5) {
    romOnes="V";
  } else if (ones>5 && ones<9) {
    romOnes="V";
    for (i=0; i<ones-5; i++) {
      romOnes = romOnes + "I";
    }
  } else if (ones==9) {
    romOnes="IX";
  }
  
  if (numArr.length>1) {
    var tens=numArr[numArr.length-2];
    var romTens=0; 
    if (tens==0) {
      romTens="";
    } else if (tens>0 & tens<4) {
      romTens="X";
      for (i=0; i<tens-1; i++) {
        romTens = romTens + "X";
      }
    } else if (tens==4) {
      romTens="XL";
    } else if (tens==5) {
      romTens="L";
    } else if (tens>5 && tens<9) {
      romTens="L";
      for (i=0; i<tens-5; i++) {
        romTens = romTens + "X";
      }
    } else if (tens==9) {
      romTens="XC";
   }
  }
  
   if (numArr.length>2) { 
    var hundreds=numArr[numArr.length-3];
    var romHundreds=0; 
    if (hundreds==0) {
      romHundreds="";
    } else if (hundreds>0 & hundreds<4) {
      romHundreds="C";
      for (i=0; i<hundreds; i++) {
        romHundreds = romHundreds + "C";
      }
    } else if (hundreds==4) {
      romHundreds="CD";
    } else if (hundreds==5) {
      romHundreds="D";
    } else if (hundreds>5 && hundreds<9) {
      romHundreds="D";
      for (i=0; i<hundreds-5; i++) {
        romHundreds = romHundreds + "C";
      }
    } else if (hundreds==9) {
      romHundreds="CM";
    }
  }
  
 return num;
  }

convertToRoman(99);

Your browser information:

Your Browser User Agent is: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/63.0.3239.132 Safari/537.36.

Link to the challenge:
https://www.freecodecamp.org/challenges/roman-numeral-converter

4

Yes i know its unfinished. I felt frustrated at the point i stopped at and that was when I looked at the hints. I will try and finish it this way and then try ‘an elagent solution’ after.

Maybe i will start storing my various solutions on github to see my progress.

5

Thank you for this randell. Really puts things in perspective.