results from my initial interview with Patriot consulting, and 1 night's sleep to realize that I could have shown a basic data structure

patriot.js

//2.    Remove duplicate characters from a string (ABCdeABCfg -> ABCdefg)

/* build a string by ensuring that it does not already have letters in before adding */
function dedup (dupped) {
  deduped = '' // start with an empty string
  dupped
      .split('') // get an array of letters from the input
      .forEach(l => { // for every letter in the array
          if(deduped.indexOf(l) === -1) // if the string we are building does not contain it
              deduped += l // add it (only once)
      })
  return deduped // return the built string
}

// or with Set
function dedupDS (dupped) {
  const duplicatesArray = dupped.split('')
  const intermediateSet  = new Set(duplicatesArray)
  const uniqueArray = Array.from(intermediateSet)
  const dedupped = uniqueArray.join('')

  return dedupped
}

const expect (message, value) => if(!value()) console.warn(message)

expect("it should handle a normal case with repeats: (ABCdeABCfg -> ABCdefg)", 
  () => dedup('ABCdeABCfg') === 'ABCdefg')
  
expect("if we give it nothing, we get nothing", 
 () => dedup('') === '')


// user name, age - backend api accepts the username, age and returns success or failure 

<template><!-- vuejs component -->
  <section class=usertx>
    <form class=userInput>
      <formgroup>
          <input type=text name=name v-model=user.name required></input>
          <label for=name>Name</label>
      </formgroup>
      <formgroup>
          <input type=number name=age v-model=user.age :value=default_age required></input>
          <label for=age>Age</label>
      </formgroup>
      <button @click=submit>Submit</button>
    </form>
    <vue-modal :response=response></vue-modal>
  </section>
</template>

<script>
import {mapState} from 'vuex'
import {userMethods} from 'store/user'
import {ServerResponseModal} from './ServerResponseModal'

export default {
  data () {
      return {
          default_age: 20
      }
  },
  computed: {
      mapState({ user: state => state.usermodel.user,
        response: state => state.usermodel.lastTx.response
      }),
  },
  methods {
    submit () {
        if(this.verify())
          this.submitToServer()    
    },
    verify() { // ensure quality post
    },
    ...userMethods // submitToServer
  },
  components { vue-modal: ServerResponseModal }
}
<script>

<style lang="scss" scoped>
  @import '/styles/userstyling';
// styling
</style>