This lesson never taught about wrapping an object literal in parenthesis to tell JavaScript to treat it as a literal.

Hi Cameron,

He explains this after he asks you to pause the video and figure it out on your own. When I am asked to try something on my own, I would prefer to have all the information necessary to tackle the task. Instead I am getting stuck wondering why I can't do something only to find out brand new information after unpausing the video.

Ah, my mistake! I read your post as referring to the lesson as a whole. I see how that could be frustrating.

I agree that this one is a bit obscure and could benefit from a mention earlier in the video or the teacher's notes about returning objects from arrow functions. This information isn't necessary for the solution though, since you can just use a regular function:

const userNames = ['Samir', 'Angela', 'Beatrice', 'Shaniqua', 'Marvin', 'Sean'];
    // Result: [{name: 'Samir'}, {name: 'Shaniqua'}, {name:'Sean'}];

let users = userNames
  .filter(name => name.charAt(0) === 'S')
  .map(function(name){
    let obj = {name};
    return obj;
  });

console.log(users);

Just to add a different perspective -- I often find moments like this to be valuable learning experiences. If the way I think it should work doesn't quite do it I'll seek out documentation or search online to figure out what I'm missing. If I can't (or just don't want to) figure it out myself I can always proceed to the teacher's solution. Seeking out solutions myself tends to help the concepts sink in better and provides useful practice for when I'm trying to solve issues I run in to on my own outside of the courses here.

Totally agree, with both of you. While frustrating at times, for the most part this a valuable learning experience. I like how sometimes with Treehouse challenges I have to seek the answer out elsewhere before progressing with the video. It feels like how a real programmer would tackle a challenge.

I've used other learning resources that never push you to do this, and I retain nothing from the experience.