Form Controls exercise in User Focused Data module is impossible?

[alismith-dev]

Describe the bug

The fourth question in the README of the Form Controls exercise in the User Focused Data module has the following requirement:

I must collect a date and make sure that date is in the next four weeks.

What is wrong with this content?

The only way I can think of achieving this is by hard-coding the max attribute on a <input type="date"> to 4 weeks from the date at which the code was written.

I don't think hard-coding the date really meets the requirements, given that it's implied that the window is relative to the current date. You could use JS to compute this, but there is also a constraint that only HTML and CSS is used.

How could this be fixed?

To be completely honest I can't think of a specific solution to this, other than changing the requirement completely to a pre-agreed date range. I think this would then require framing the problem such that this makes sense (and I think this might be challenging given the semi-realistic example of selling t-shirts).

Link to content

https://github.com/CodeYourFuture/Module-User-Focused-Data/blob/main/Form-Controls/README.md?plain=1#25

Additional context

It came up as a question from a trainee in London.

Who else might need to know about this?

@CodeYourFuture/global-syllabus
@CodeYourFuture/itp-volunteers

[SallyMcGrath]

The exercise is just to explore different attributes and native validations on forms, and min and max are those.

It's not remotely a realistic form. You put your name and email in and delivery, yet no address, and there's explicitly no action. I can't really see the problem with it tbh! If you want to add more explanation, you can, but remember the goal is never to just issue a set of instructions for them to execute without thought, but to present a useful frame for questions and learning.

[StudiousSalamander]

**Edit: just re-read and saw your comment about HTML and CSS only.

Agreed, I don't see how you could do this without JS**

-Matt

[alismith-dev]

present a useful frame for questions and learning.

This is a good steer, thanks.

I'm still on the fence, for a couple of reasons:

• It seems somewhat counter-productive to be introducing requirements where we wave away the details - I think we want to be encouraging building a full understanding of requirements
• Over-enthusiastic volunteers pulling them into a JS solution "too early"

I've proposed a minor tweak to the wording here: CodeYourFuture/Module-User-Focused-Data#317

[SallyMcGrath]

Fixed in #1241