Question

1) Why does the function smallest fail? I think it conforms to the example in the Mozilla documentation https://developer.mozilla.org/en/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Math/min, which says

 function getMin(x,y) {  //from Mozilla documentation
   return Math.min(x,y)
}



function smallest(array){ //my own experimentation with Resig`s example
  return Math.min(array);
}
function largest(array){      //from John Resig`s learning advanced JavaScript #41
  return Math.max.apply( Math, array );
}
assert(smallest([0, 1, 2, 3]) == 0, "Locate the smallest value.");
assert(largest([0, 1, 2, 3]) == 3, "Locate the largest value.");

Answer 1

Math.min and Math.max takes any number of numbers, as arguments. Your smallest is trying to pass an array, not numbers.

The use of apply (as in largest in your example) pastes the elements of the array as arguments.