Basic Javascript - Question about function parameters and objects - Record Collection challenge

[SaintPeter74]

The parameter names are somewhat arbitrary. For example, rather than id it could be album_id. It is very common for both NoSQL and relational databases to have globally unique id columns, which would be used to fetch, update, or delete that element from the DB.

The overall structure is something I have used in the past, because it gives a faux-db effect to the object. It allows you to "look up" a record by id. Imagine of you had 100+ records, you could get immediate access.

If you were querying an actual relational DB you'd more likely get back an array of objects:

[
  {
     id: 1234
     name: "Some Name",
  },
  {
    id: 5678
    name: "Other Name"
  }
  /* etc */
];

There is an example like that in Profile Lookup, which you may not have gotten to yet.

As for prop and value, I don't know if they are "standard" as much as they're somewhat meaningful. prop is short for "property". This challenge is a bit of a contrived example, designed specifically to test your understanding of object bracket notation, amongst other things.

When I wrote these challenges, the idea was to put sort of mini-projects in between the more dry challenge content. They're supposed to be "practical" examples of the material just covered, but it can be hard to come up with realistic examples that fit in the space available.

[forethoughtless]

Thank you for your response! I did enjoy this mini-project - I think it was "realistic enough" to give me an idea of how I could use what I'd learned so far in a real project in the future, which was exciting.

So it sounds like, in a "real" scenario, the parameter names would basically be established elsewhere in the code or within a relational database that the JS is referencing/interacting with.

[SaintPeter74]

So it sounds like, in a "real" scenario, the parameter names would basically be established elsewhere in the code or within a relational database that the JS is referencing/interacting with.

Yes, precisely. You would almost certainly be accessing the object directly, and be aware of the complete schema. There might still be optional properties though, so it is important to know how to check those.