I'd give this course a 4.5 star, if half star ratings were allowed. I found this course to be very informative, very well presented, & had a good progression of difficulty starting very basic & gradually getting more complex. I also liked that this course gave links for further reading/study outside of the course itself. I also liked that when I got questions wrong on the graded assessments I was linked back to where I could learn the answer to that question. A couple of things held this course back from receiving a 5 star from me. This course didn't go over the dir() or help() functions which would have been very useful at times. On one of the graded assessments (or maybe it wasn't a graded assessment, but a section in the following module) some questions involved object-oriented programming which was an optional portion. I did the optional part so it was fine for me, however if someone skipped the optional part I don't see how they would understand Event Classes. The least explained portion of the course was "Python in Action" in module 5, the import function was used for 4 different imports that weren't explained very well. From another course I learned the dir() & help() function & tried to use those to make sense of what was happening, but I never fully understood it. Most concepts had a video + a reading which was very well done, but this one reading, the hardest out of all of them had no video & minimal explanations while bringing in a bunch of new functions not shown before in the course.

The content was very good, but, ironically, the algorithms for grading the assignments were sometimes janky; including, and perhaps especially, the final exam. The widget for uploading the text file failed, then the grading mechanism kept failing to pass code that accurately fulfilled the requirements of the exam. On the quizes for various chapters, similar things would happen. The code would produce the exact results requested, but would inexplicably return a failure to pass. Luckily, only an 80% grade was required to pass. I would have been very frustrated if I had been unable to pass an entire quiz due to these glitches.

The instructions for quiz questions were also a bit vague at times, and not always entirely intuitive. There is a habit among folks who write documentation and instruction materials for all manner of IT-related content, to use a programmer's version of "lawyer-speak", so to speak. That is, speaking as though the audience is already as familiar with the subject as they are, which is, obviously, not very logical for instructional material. That wasn't as big a problem here, but having to read between the lines on what to do resulted in my having to spend more time peeling layers off an onion for a solution that could have been more skinning an apple from the get-go.

Maybe when I finish the certification, you should hire someone like me to address some of these issues for you, lol. Other than that, the videos and core content were really quite good, as I said in the beginning.

What I loved about this course was that it was very engaging. There were periodic quizzes and exercises to give me plenty of practice. The main presenter was animated, enthusiastic, and spoke naturally. The course's pacing was excellent.

I'm an experienced programmer, and this course was exactly what I was looking for. If you're a complete beginner at programming, this course may be challenging. Some of the exercises seem to be testing problem solving as opposed to language comprehension.

The course has a few issues, such as a handful of poorly explained concepts and vague project requirements, but even with those issues, I would highly recommend it.

One missing topic that I would have liked to see would be advice for troubleshooting code. For example, I often find it helpful to use print statements to display variables while the code is running. This is similar to lifting the hood of a car and observing the engine to troubleshoot car issues (I think!). Also, it appears that feedback on the content is generally being dismissed. I saw a lot of feedback on the forums that address easily fixed issues that were posted years ago, but the issues persist.

Finally, thank goodness, the final project was relatively easy. If you passed the tests during the course, you should have no issues with the final project.

Good luck!

If you're looking for a legit crash course for Python, this can be completed in 7 days. It's got good bones and it's fast if you can grasp concepts quickly. The teacher is charismatic, encouraging and put out easy to understand concepts. This one factor got me to persevere and the problem-solving methodology allowed me to write code independently towards the final assignment, which is a big achievement for me. Object-oriented Programming shines through this course, but everything else requires you to perform a lot of Googling. Solutions to quizzes and graded assessments are not in plain sight and need a ton of effort to trawl through the discussion forum. This is a good crash course to get your feet wet. I took one star off because Codecademy provides more hands-on examples to practice your basics, nothing against Google, just providing more resources for the keenest of Python basic learners. Since this course is the start of a Specialisation, there may be more quality, real-world application content in the subsequent courses.

Chapter 4 is the hardest part. I had experience with Java and Visual Basic, so I was able to make a connection with the material up to Lists (arrays). But dictionaries are something else. Make sure you practice the code during the lectures. Run the code as the instructor covers the material to make sure you understand how it works. You will find some of the common typing errors and prepare for the tests. Also note the key concepts when the instructor flashes them in the video.

The optional chapter 5 on Object oriented is important. This will be harder for a person new to coding, but benefitable for the final project because you practice a little with Jupyter.

I used Thonny on Linux Debian and Visual Studio Code.

1. Some quiz questions contain typos.

2. The output tests aren't smart enough to detect a line break or space at the end of the output strings.

3. Instead of indicating what the outputs should be like as comments, you should put them as part of the questions before the code snippets. If there's going to be a space or line break at the end, please also indicate that so we can write code to output exactly that. Like in 1 or 2 questions, I got the exact output as indicated in the commented output when I ran it in my local Python interpreter but the result said my output wasn't right.

Overall, there's still some typos and errors in the course. Google is so big. You should have many experts to help review the contents.

I think how the format is on what you should learn first and together are great. I do love the enthusiasm of the classes. I love the at your own pace in this course, especially since my work isn't quite so flexible with their schedule. I also love how when your taking a quiz or the test you can always go back through the videos to try to understand what to do. Just overall it's a great way to start learning what Python is. The only thing I wish is that the samples were more realistic in like what you may see in a job. And the same sample is being used in the same frequency it is showed. Some the samples were jumping back and forth. It's not horrible but it is a little hard to follow jumping between examples.

I did not finish, because I want to take more time in deciding if software developing/data analyst is really for me as a career personally. This course was REALLY informative and packs a lot of information in the videos, readings and work throughs. If you are certain that this is what you want to do, then go for it!

My second thoughts started arising when I was not enjoying going back over the coursework for a third time, it usually takes me awhile to really internalize knowledge and I no longer had a burning passion to keep going at it. I am still learning programming, and even use Python for work, but automation was a big leap that I didn't have the time to invest in at this point in my life.

Cons:

This course has huge hands on experience which is good for beginners.

Pros:

This course is for very beginners and provides very basic knowledge.

For me it was very easy, because I already know Java.

I spent 3 full days to finish it but received very little knowledge about Python.

It covers only basics of Python. I think for people who already know other language instead of wasting time for this course it is better just to read Python docs during several hours.

This course has bugs.

It was challenging to finish last Lab because for me the lab environment didn't work in Chrome and Safari, wasted 1 hour trying, then switched to Firefox and was able to do it.

El curso es muy bueno, pero aún se requiere conocimientos previos para poder avanzar con rapidez. Los temas de funciones, listas y diccionarios así lo requieren. Lo otro es que en los dos primeros temas aparecía en la parte inferior del video el texto de lo que la instructora estaba diciendo, eso en los temas sucesivos desapareció. Es un apoyo importante para quienes no hablan el idioma ingles. En cuento al proyecto final se deben dar las instrucciones de una forma mas amigable. Creo importante una sesión para enseñar a instalar el compilador de Phyton, en plataformas Linux y Windows para que el participante pueda hacer sus prácticas offline.

A worthwhile review of Python. But, as others have said, it is probably best if you have some previous exposure to the language. I'd recommend spending a few weeks in another tutuorial before doing this one if you're new to the language.

The only real problem are the Jupyter labs introduced at the end of the course. They are a little buggy. Search the discussion forums with any errors you get to find solutions is the best I can advise.

My recommendation to the course maintainers is to lose the labs entirely and just keep the text editor style code blocks used in much of the rest of the course.

This starts from basic to intermediate. It would be nice to have more help options available. Good thing I took a previous course in Python elsewhere. Otherwise, I would not have understood anything in the intermediate part. I recommend you all use PyCharm Community, Jupyter Notebook, and Anaconda. There should be more test questions to test you on how well you paid attention and a mix to see how the user can create their own programs using the codes they learn. This course gets challenging through the middle, but study, and look up examples on Google and you will understand it.

This is a VERY challenging course requiring lots of patience, practice, and plodding! All the information required to complete the course is presented in a very accessible manner, but, that makes it hard to see what concepts are really critical from the videos alone. If you have never coded at all before, this is an approachable course, and I was thrilled to be able to take it! But, be prepared to set up a Python environment and Jupyter Notebook locally! These are necessities to be successful in this course!

Great Content, Presentation, and practice! Be prepared to bring the work!

I think the course is great, I was able to complete in a the span of 2 days, but I do have a background in computer science and have been studying python for the past 4 years. So this was mainly just to refresh my skills and understand maybe some extra stuff as well, but overall I would say the course was great a well designed. But new people not used to programming will have to spend a considerable amount of time studying and preparing, its also important to code actual project on the side as well, inevitably this will decide whether you learn the material or not.

The knowledge shared here is relevant and it is delivered in a fun, dynamic way. The problems in the course, however, could use a bit more clarification - it isn't the code per se that I ended it up struggling with, but the problem definition. Sometimes, in order to write the code, it'd be easier to have the functions/classes without any variables, rather than just have spaces to fill out the code. When you start, it is a lot easier to write your own code from the ground up rather than having to use someone else's code (you have to figure it out prior to write).

My journey through this course was no less than a roller coaster ride but I would like to mention that I really loved this course. I got a strong hold of concepts through practice.I would like to thank our mentors who helped us with our queries. one more thing I would like to add is that the questions were easy initially. later on the difficulty level kept on increasing which was a bigger challenge. I took help of my friends and people on Discussion Forum to complete this course since as a beginner it became difficult for me complete this course

A good crash course on Python.

It helps break the work down so learners can easily digest everything and gives some good references for futher learning. What impressed me the most is the lecturer. Her amazing voice really motivated me to continue learning otherwise I might have dropped half the way through.

On ther other hand, I think it would be more helpful if there were script answers for learners to compare and flowcharts to explain algorithms (just like my high school teacher did back then when I learned Pascal.) Thank you, Google.

great overview over the fundamentals of python! great for beginners and plenty of practice problems. I was already a fairly fluent python coder but took this course for the certificate and as a little refresher course. I definitely appreciated this!

my only qualm was that some of the practice quizzes extended a bit beyond the scope of the teachings. however, discussion forums and a little extra research made it all very manageable. the instructor was cheery and uplifting, which sometimes you really need when coding gets frustrating!

Sometimes there are several ways to do things in Python. And it is not always clear from the instructions what the appropriate way to manipulate the object in question. I found this especially true with the optional programming assignment about the servers and connections. When it says add your server or add your connection it wasn't clear what we were trying to accomplish.

Also, I think sometimes you have used a construct that was never explained, e.g., .values() on a dictionary traversal. But maybe I just didn't read everything.

The course was presented decently and the examples were simple yet effective. I would have liked a bit more exercises because practice makes perfect.

I did not like the jupyter platform as it handles really awkwardly and I somehow managed to override the default save and could not rollback to the initial assignment for the load-balancing exercise. I just gave up because I did not remember which parts were mine and which parts were from the initial assignment. I tried to find a version control interface but simply gave up on that.

Pretty solid course. The structure was built well and each module built upon the last well. Some of the questions/prompts were a little confusing as to what they were trying to get you to achieve with the code, but with some searching online I was able to figure it out. Overall it was challenging in a good way and the concepts were taught well. You wouldn't *need* to pay to learn the concepts, but I do recommend it. Paying gets you access to additional practice and helps solidify the concepts learned in each section.

Was great in introducing people to the concepts of Python. I found myself at times having to reference different youtube videos explaining and teaching things in simpler terms. Only advice would be to embed the readings in the modules rather than link for reference. Also making the videos a tad longer with exercises embedded in a follow along format with knowledge checks being frequent to force to user to stop and think about what they just learned every 2 minutes or so.

Overall, well put together course!!

Cheers.

Mostly great. I benefitted from the course, thanks! Instructor is great, and almost no technical issues.There were 2-3 minor issues in the instructions (I sent feedback on each of them), and also there is this weird behavior with the final project: the auto-submission never worked, even though I do see that my script works correctly. And once I submitted in manually, it finally graded it 1/1, but comment said something about balancing servers (which was a different task, one of the previous tasks in the course).

I find the overall structure good. I know that the design is to try to get newcomers involved in Python, but I really find the cheesy comments get to be too much after a while. (And this coming from a father of 2 that tells "Dad Jokes" all the time!)

Maybe there should be another option to do a test for those that already know beyond the basics of Python but want to do the rest of the specialty? I completed the course in 5 days instead of 6 weeks because I want to get on to where I am learning something new.

I think it was great, really well structured except for some problems which were difficult to figure out without further explanation. I recommend it for anyone starting out with no knowledge at all like me, but I think to be able to have a better insight on python and other programming languages it would be better to find another web for learning python too, after finishing this course, or during the course. This way you can keep learning so that you won't forget, and practice more.

Thank you, Coursera!