Thanks for your feedback. First of all, all the testable user stories will be focused on functionality (not form), and will represent the bare minimum of what needs to be done. You’ll have plenty of room for creative expression on top of completing the core requirements of the projects.
I’ve written a more detailed update on why all the changes are taking longer than expected here: https://www.quora.com/When-will-Free-Code-Camp-include-Machine-Learning-DevOps-Maths-for-Programmer-and-every-other-section-which-is-listed-as-Coming-Soon/answer/Quincy-Larson
In the past we’ve rolled out new challenges as they were ready, and each time mass panic has ensued. This is because it is hard to communicate the changes to everyone. So we plan to push all the major curriculum expansion at the same time, to minimize the tremendous communication and support burden associated with adding new challenges.
I realize this may sound counter-intuitive. Trust me - trying to communicate anything even somewhat complicated like “these new challenges are optional” or “no we didn’t lose part of your progress - these challenges are new” or “you don’t need to go back and do these challenges if you don’t want to - keep moving” - to 600,000 people - many of whom haven’t added email addresses to their accounts, or even accessed Free Code Camp in a month or two - is extremely challenging.
We will push the new front end challenges, the new test-driven projects, the completely overhauled back end challenges and projects, and the updated certificates all at the same time, and will formally announce these changes everywhere - Medium, YouTube, our forum, chat rooms, email, freecodecamp.com itself - so we can to minimize confusion within our community.
Right now, our curriculum is stable. Tons of schools and educational nonprofits are using Free Code Camp for their students. Many people have formulated long-term goals around completing specific certificates. As badly as we want to release all these new challenges our community has designed, we must weight this against the need for some semblance of stability.
Thanks for your patience.