Hey, i’m doing FCC’s beta, i’m almost done with the first and second certificates, and while the curriculum is excellent the project test suite seems like an odd choice. It feels much more like a constraint rather than a guideline, it heavily constrains creativity and incentivises doing the bare minimum to meet the checkmarks. That’s how i felt, of course i can’t talk for others.
After doing the survey and tribute page following the guidelines 100%, i decided to just ignore them completely for the landing page and subsequent projects. I’m trying to do the projects without even taking a look at the test suite, and afterwards, when the beta version goes live, i’ll adapt them only to pass the test suite, and that’s where i see a problem. The suite ends up serving no purpose other than as a checklist, let’s say i forgot to add a semantic html5 tag, i would surely add it to pass the test, but that wouldn’t be a meaningful feedback, only a small hastle in getting my marks checked, in no way would i take it into account in my next projects.
If the reason behind the test suite is to automate the process of giving certificates, then i see it’s purpose and agree with it completely. But for learning purposes, i can’t see a positive side to it.
Of course, this is a highly subjective opinion from my experience doing the beta projects and in no way i’m a reflex of the community as a whole.