Programming for Everybody (Getting Started with Python)

This was my first MOOC so I went in with an open mind and no expectations. I had absolutely no dev experience so I was looking for an online course that was truly for beginners.

The course consists of an eBook and online videos/assignments/quizzes. The professor Dr. Charles Severance is passionate about Python and enthusiastic about sharing his knowledge. He is engaging in the online lectures. In addition to the lectures, he also adds interviews and other relevant video clips these extras made me feel like I was truly a part of this course.

The assignments/quizzes are due on a weekly basis and must be completed by Sunday evening. I felt this helped me hold myself accountable even when I had things going on, I prioritized getting my assignment and quiz in prior to Sunday.

I enjoyed this course so much that I’ve decided to complete the entire Coursera Learn to Program and Analyze Data with Python Specialization.

I took this course because I want to complete the specialization. I knew almost all of the content before joining the course. The content was well presented by Dr. Chuck. I also loved the eBook they’ve provided along with this course. Having taken many MOOCs, I felt this was one of those very few courses which knew how to teach via internet.

I would highly recommend it for people who want to get into programming. The difficulty is just about right (slightly on the easier side) but it’d surely help you progress well with coding.

First off, let me say that this course is excellent. I’ve been interested in learning to program for a few months now. I tried things like Codecademy and Code School and while I learned a little bit from each of them, Python for Everybody was the key to my success of finally grasping the language.

There’s a few reasons for this:

1. Dr. Chuck is awesome! His lessons are light hearted, thorough, and truly make programming fun. He is the type of professor who is doing this for the love of Python and that really stands out.

2. This course encourages you to work from your own environment. While being able to learn to code in a browser is fun and interesting…using your own machine and your own terminal to execute Python is essential. Plus, you feel like a real programmer! Which really is cool when you’re just starting out. It gives you motivation to keep going. It did for me anyway.

If you’re on the fence about this course, take it from another developer in training. Dr. Chuck’s Python for Everybody is one of the best classes I’ve ever taken. You’ll be glad you did.

This course is the first in the series, Programming for Everybody, which is a very good initiation into the world of computer programming via the Python language, a very straightforward and easily learned scripting language. Dr. Charles Severance present the material in a very easy going, conversational manner, using a textbook which he adapted for this series. Video lectures are supplement with interviews with important players in the development of the programming profession. Students are assigned weekly quizzes and programming project, and can obtain assistance in the student curated wiki and discussion forum, ably moderated by volunteer mentors.

I highly recommend this course to those wanting an exposure to practical programming.

This is a great course. The teacher not only knows his material, but has a lot of experience working with first time programmers and so knows what errors they are likely to make and what questions they are likely to ask and addresses them all. He is fun to listen to, unlike some moocs I have taken where the teachers were reading and got the intonation all wrong very distracting. This one wasn’t like that by far. He was interesting and even funny at times. The only issue I have is that if you are auditing the class, it isn’t as nice an experience. You can’t submit quizzes to see if you got them right and all your coding problems are marked wrong. You can still do the coding and the website will error check and all, but you won’t get the pass/fail grade to be sure you got it right. I worked through all the materials, including reading the chapters in the book in just four days. I’d say there is about 2 to 4 hours of work per “week” expected. So, great course, but Coursera has become more interested in making money than in those of us who must only audit. It is not worth my time to chase up financial aid for something I’m working through so quickly. I’d rather spend the time working on a portfolio for future work than to bother about all that. I’m disabled, so I have no money to through at the problem. So, if you can only audit the class, is it worth it? YES! Just prepared to be highly annoyed with Coursera. The problem isn’t the instructor’s fault and I’m glad to have the materials. The videos covers what’s in the book, but in an easy to understand way, so when you read the chapter associated with it, you can follow along without it being too dry or laborious. Then you are ready for the quiz and coding problem(s), and then a little wrap up material before moving on to the next lesson. I’m glad we are allowed to work ahead. I’m moving on to the second course in the specialization, which picks up where this one left off. If you want to learn Python or just “a” programing language to get a start or just dabble in programming, this is a great place to start!

I joined this course to achieve two things: to learn about learning online in a MOOC environment, and to get an early grip on Python. I have some experience with PHP but find that PHP is excruciatingly slow for the development of database driven web sites. Don’t misunderstand me my programming background is modest and largely comprised of working with Visual Basic for Applications, behind Microsoft Access databases. MS Access is absolutely NOT the right environment for web site implementation and Python called me in the night … one night about eight days ago.

There are a couple of things about the MOOC environment that I want to comment on. It is great to be able to rattle through the videos I was soon running at 1.25 or 1.50 ‘real time’ (that is a great feature of the viewer!) and frankly I have no wish to spend time watching anyone sipping their coffee or straining their tea bags. Sorry, Chuck! Having said that, pitching the examples at a simple level clearly exercises the features of programming (and the Python language) easily, and for that I am grateful. I will certainly press on to the following modules. The other thing about this MOOC environment wasHUGE frustration with the auto grader. I found it to be very ‘fragile’ (that is the best word I can find to describe it) and when your code fails, it gives very poor feedback. The last exercise (5.2) I simply had to leave without a grade, because all it would tell me is ‘< Mismatch' what the heck does that mean? Where are the help screens and the backup? The code that I wrote for 5.2 works perfectly in my Python IDE (SPE Stani's Python Editor, working in an Ubuntu machine). I simply cannot work out why it does NOT work in the auto grader. Total frustration. As soon as I finish this review I am going to continue my search for answers.In terms of getting a grip on Python, as I am in effect migrating from other languages, I guess I chose the wrong course. I am familiar with the concepts of sequence, iteration and decision (and functions) so I really just needed a cheat sheet to get me started. Conclusion this module really is for beginners, IMHO.Finally, Chuck clearly put some effort into organising some interviews with ‘names’ which are useful context, but there could have been a closer discussion of how the interviewed experts viewed the activity that is programming, and they could have offered advice to novice programmers, rather than speaking historically (mostly) about their specialities: the Arduino, Python itself, whatever …Time to move on. I hope this helps someone decide about the course.

With so many glowing reviews, I don’t think mine matters, but here it is anyway: This course is amazing.

This course is so amazing that a) I realized I threw away way too much money on a different “introduction to python” course that had live instructors and one on one access to mentors because this class was free and far more beneficial; and b) when I’m done writing this review, I’m going to sign up for the whole Coursera Python for Everybody specialization.

The Python playground is amazing, but it isn’t even necessary because the instructor provides such great material for getting Python installed and running on your computer (with windows, mac, and linux instructions), even a complete beginner would be able to follow the instructions and make a functioning script in no time. But the playground is just a lot of fun to play with, and makes tinkering as a beginner super easy.

I spent one whole day and finished the entire Getting Started with Python course (auditing, no quizzes), and learned more than I learned in the first 4 weeks of a 6 week paid course. Dr. Chuck is GOOD at what he does. He presents material in a very down to earth manner in clear, plain language that’s technical, but not over my head. I have very little experience with programming, and know the basics of computers and computing, but even the introduction to hardware architecture was fascinating and I learned more about hardware than I expected. I felt a lot more prepared to dive into programming after that lecture.

The amazing thing is that so much is crammed into such short lectures, and yet the material is still accessible.

Speaking of accessibility: the lectures have captions AND interactive transcripts. The audio is crisp and clear, as is the video without background noise or distractions. The dedication to accessibility has blown me away and is another big reason I plan to support Coursera by paying for the specialization path.

Took the course as an Executive well involved with Technology in companies for over 25 years. I took this in order to go back and learn the basics of programming, something that I skipped in my career, which had been missing all the long. The course structure is perfect for a busy guy like me that does not have the time to take off my daily agenda but to work during my free time from the home office and to pick up those fundamentals that I relied on others to give me while we implemented systems that would change the working lives of so many people. I absolutely love this program, Coursera/MOOC and those Universities (UofM) on this one, that they are actually doing work that is vital in today’s competitive society.

I will not become a programmer, but I will be able to pick up the knowledge to talk shop with the most important people on my teams, the developers. That I can not only understand but challenge results and outcomes with the knowledge of the parameters of the technologies capabilities from the back end.

Thanks so much, I am spreading the word of Coarsera and the valuable work and academic relationships they are creating. This course was the perfect addition to my need to grow my knowledge and career at this point in my life. It is not just for those starting their career, but those enhancing very matured careers.

Technology is very much like a Medical Doctor keeping up with the latest and greatest of medicines and technology to keep people healthy. People who think they know it all, well, they can only be as good as the knowledge they can pass share and pass on, to a technologist in today’s Information/AI era, these courses are vital to keeping us moving forward and keeping us applicable to our customers. That, in the end, is the most important thing.

Bravo to everyone involved with this course and delivering a great streamlined product.

This is the 2 of 4 courses I have taken on Python. The reason I took it was because of the specialization seemed more complete than the others. The courses following this one, if memory serves, offers a variant of SQL and some ways to really use Python in some very interesting ways. In this regard, it is probably the best.

I am also taking Interactive Python, and cannot help but compare the two. Even though Interactive Python covers Python 2, many of the quizzes and assignments are accessible to auditors. This was not the case for this course. This is why I gave it a 4/5.

I found the lectures, relatively speaking compared to *all* of the other 4 that I have taken to be among the worst in terms of helpfulness. That might have to do with the fact that most of it I have already become familiar with and use. But I don’t think so. Case in point: functions. About the only thing he really did with functions is show how to make one and how to call it. He didn’t really go into any detail on types of functions or ways that they’re used. I am familiar enough, now, with Python that I can make the adjustments I need to in the Python 2 lectures to make them useful. If you want to consider which MOOC is the best available through class central, I recommend the Python Interactive. But, as I mentioned earlier, there are, following these lectures, a series of important topics offered that I don’t think are included in the other MOOCs. So, I will begin those very soon and may change my opinion on the usefulness of this as a part of a whole.

Actually, I would have given it a 3/5 except for the interesting additional interviews with Rossum. It was a nice cherry on the top.

I work in lesson design and blended learning teacher training. I train teachers how to combine effective teaching practices with technology in K 8 classrooms. There is lots of room for improvement in this course. I would not recommend it to someone with no experience. I have no experience in coding, and did well in this course because I went to other sources to answer my questions and fill the knowledge gaps in this course. Though the instructor was great. He seems very passionate.

From a teaching/pedagogy standpoint the scope and sequence was poor. It went from extremely broad (defining computer parts) to hyper specific (defining variables in python) really quick. There was no information between on the practical pieces of what python is, what it looks like on our computer, and how we interact with it.

It feels like multiple people got together to build the course, but after it was finished they never came back to say “Here’s where we didn’t communicate, let’s edit these things.”

There is a HUGE disconnect between writing python programs and running them vs. running the actual python platform and typing commands line by line. The most frustrating thing was that every example in the course was given as a line of code in the python platform with the chevron prompt, and every single assignment was about writing a program in the text editor and the running the program. I didn’t realize these were two completely different things until about week 6. PLEASE ADDRESS THIS. Make it clear for future students that this is a thing. Go over how to use both, and the benefits and drawbacks of each. Make it clear that your examples are taking place in the command line python platform, but our homework is writing programs and saving and running them. I didn’t understand the use of the ’type’ function until I realized this discrepancy. This was so confusing.

Some of the quiz questions were very specific questions that were mentioned for about a second or never explicitly made clear. Some of the ideas that were emphasized or mentioned multiple times in the same lecture video (seemed important) were never asked on the quiz. I can give examples of both.

I learned some stuff, but overall I would not recommend this course without pointing to the discrepancies. I would say there are multiple obvious areas for improvement and multiple gaps in knowledge that I filled from other sources. I could give more specific examples, but I feel like I already wrote quite a bit.

Just completed the first part of this course, 7 weeks. Thoroughly enjoyed it. “Dr Chuck” is a good lecturer his enthusiasm for and experience in his subject come across very well and he looks as if he enjoys teaching always a plus for a student! I am going to enrol on the remainder of the course.

There were a couple of areas in the course where the presentation in the video was confusing (can’t remember which week, perhaps week 4?) where Dr Chuck used only Mac commands in the command prompt section, which is confusing as a PC user. That week’s forum was full of confused exclamations from students! Yes, there are downloads which help you to learn which commands to use, but when you’ve been progressing through the videos in one way (PC or Mac commands) and then suddenly a video uses another method, it takes precious time away from learning if you have to find out which commands to use for yourself. I think consistency in the video presentations would be best, or else just a quick reminder of which commands to use if you’re watching as a PC user (or Mac user if vice versa). But, really not a big deal overall.

There was also one video where Dr Chuck’s example programming contained a small error, which he didn’t mention or correct, but I used that as extra practice for me as a learner!

I audited this course only (i.e. didn’t pay to take it), so I wasn’t able to submit the assignments for marks or get the course certificate. But that’s OK as I could still use them for my own practice and I think it’s fair if one is not paying for the course.

There are plenty of very good resources provided so that you can complete extra learning over and above the course at your leisure. Obviously the course can only provide an overview of each stage, not go too in depth. But the information and resources are there for you to learn more fully as you please.

Prof. Severance is a wonderful teacher and mentor, who explains the topic in the simplest way possible and in a very humorous and interesting way. I wish I had teachers like him in my college; it would have made learning my lessons a lot easier. When he is teaching, it doesn’t seem like he is a professor teaching students, rather it feels like one of our friend is explaining to us what Python is all about. Especially in that one video, when he started teaching while wearing a sorting hat (from the Harry Potter movies) at the same time, I knew that this is what is known as the ‘art of teaching’. You rarely get to see quality teaching like this. Thanks from the bottom of my heart, Prof. Severance. You’ve earned my respect.

Coming to the course, it especially caters to people who have no prior experience in programming. People who know a little bit of programming may find it a tad slow, though that can be fixed by fast forwarding videos or skipping them. The exercises and assignments are very fun to do, and they test your basic knowledge in Python.

Last but not the least, thank god for Coursera. Their website UI is fantastic and it makes taking a course very easy and an enjoyable experience. I hope they continue making quality content like this.

This is a great course. The teacher not only knows his material, but has a lot of experience working with first time programmers and so knows what errors they are likely to make and what questions they are likely to ask and addresses them all. He is fun to listen to, unlike some moocs I have taken where the teachers were reading and got the intonation all wrong very distracting. This one wasn’t like that by far. He was interesting and even funny at times. The only issue I have is that if you are auditing the class, it isn’t as nice an experience. You can’t submit quizzes to see if you got them right and all your coding problems are marked wrong. You can still do the coding and the website will error check and all, but you won’t get the pass/fail grade to be sure you got it right. I worked through all the materials, including reading the chapters in the book in just four days. I’d say there is about 2 to 4 hours of work per “week” expected. So, great course, but Coursera has become more interested in making money than in those of us who must only audit. It is not worth my time to chase up financial aid for something I’m working through so quickly. I’d rather spend the time working on a portfolio for future work than to bother about all that. I’m disabled, so I have no money to through at the problem. So, if you can only audit the class, is it worth it? YES! Just prepared to be highly annoyed with Coursera. The problem isn’t the instructor’s fault and I’m glad to have the materials. The videos covers what’s in the book, but in an easy to understand way, so when you read the chapter associated with it, you can follow along without it being too dry or laborious. Then you are ready for the quiz and coding problem(s), and then a little wrap up material before moving on to the next lesson. I’m glad we are allowed to work ahead. I’m moving on to the second course in the specialization, which picks up where this one left off. If you want to learn Python or just “a” programing language to get a start or just dabble in programming, this is a great place to start!

This is a great course. The teacher not only knows his material, but has a lot of experience working with first time programmers and so knows what errors they are likely to make and what questions they are likely to ask and addresses them all. He is fun to listen to, unlike some moocs I have taken where the teachers were reading and got the intonation all wrong very distracting. This one wasn’t like that by far. He was interesting and even funny at times. The only issue I have is that if you are auditing the class, it isn’t as nice an experience. You can’t submit quizzes to see if you got them right and all your coding problems are marked wrong. You can still do the coding and the website will error check and all, but you won’t get the pass/fail grade to be sure you got it right. I worked through all the materials, including reading the chapters in the book in just four days. I’d say there is about 2 to 4 hours of work per “week” expected. So, great course, but Coursera has become more interested in making money than in those of us who must only audit. It is not worth my time to chase up financial aid for something I’m working through so quickly. I’d rather spend the time working on a portfolio for future work than to bother about all that. I’m disabled, so I have no money to through at the problem. So, if you can only audit the class, is it worth it? YES! Just prepared to be highly annoyed with Coursera. The problem isn’t the instructor’s fault and I’m glad to have the materials. The videos covers what’s in the book, but in an easy to understand way, so when you read the chapter associated with it, you can follow along without it being too dry or laborious. Then you are ready for the quiz and coding problem(s), and then a little wrap up material before moving on to the next lesson. I’m glad we are allowed to work ahead. I’m moving on to the second course in the specialization, which picks up where this one left off. If you want to learn Python or just “a” programing language to get a start or just dabble in programming, this is a great place to start!

Overall, this is a great introduction to Python. Prior to this class, I had zero Python experience; however, my review will be biased because not only am I a graduate of University of Michigan, but I also have 30+ years of software experience including Structured Text (CoDeSys), C, C++, C#, and a half dozen others.

Professor Severance is a great teacher I wish I could have had him as a professor during my years at U of M.

Four point nine star review: because I find a few things lacking in these introductory software courses, and this one in particular.

Development and debugging: line by line stepping through our code using a “better” software tool. Atom and the IDLE tools are VERY lacking in development capabilities.

It is fundamental to software development to be able to step through your code, line by line, set breakpoints, and easily examine variables and values as they change. And I believe this would make it MUCH more clear to new software students exactly what a CPU is doing when processing code.

I know the video course tried very hard to “sketch” out what is really going on in While loops, For loops, If then else statements, and function calls. However, I think that students, especially students new to software overall, would benefit greatly if they could use a more professional tool than the Atom and IDLE tools. And if that’s not possible, I think the videos should show the actual animation of stepping through line by line and setting breakpoints in example software, using such a tool.

Visual Studio 2015 Community version is FREE online, and has all these capabilities. I’m not promoting Microsoft or this tool, other than it’s an excellent example of the types of tools students should use for really learning software. And they will benefit greatly from this experience when they evolve to the professional level. (VS2017 also has this capability).

And two footnotes about Python:

(a) Implicit conversion from int to float, and

(b) indentation.

These are my main “beefs” against Python; in the 21st century, implicit conversions should never be allowed. And the fact that Python 3 (not Python 2) implicitly converts integers to floats during mathematical operations will bar it from being an enterprise professional language. Indentation instead of braces or other blocking methods: over and over again students will be stumped as to why their code does not work because tabs and spaces are being mingled in the code. A professional language should not do that. Indeed, one must carefully make sure the settings convert tabs to spaces.

Overall, this is a great introduction to Python and is more beneficial for beginners and started to learn to program in python. This course is so amazing that a) I realized I threw away way too much money on a different “introduction to python” course that had live instructors and one on one access to mentors because this class was free and far more beneficial; and b) when I’m done writing this review, I’m going to sign up for the whole Coursera Python for Everybody specialization.

The Python playground is amazing, but it isn’t even necessary because the instructor provides such great material for getting Python installed and running on your computer (with windows, mac, and Linux instructions), even a complete beginner would be able to follow the instructions and make a functioning script in no time. But the playground is just a lot of fun to play with and makes tinkering as a beginner super easy.

I spent one whole day and finished the entire Getting Started with Python course (auditing, no quizzes), and learned more than I learned in the first 4 weeks of a 6 week paid course. Dr. Chuck is GOOD at what he does. He presents the material in a very down to earth manner in clear, plain language that’s technical, but not over my head. I have very little experience with programming and know the basics of computers and computing, but even the introduction to hardware architecture was fascinating and I learned more about hardware than I expected. I felt a lot more prepared to dive into programming after that lecture.

The amazing thing is that so much is crammed into such short lectures, and yet the material is still accessible.

Speaking of accessibility: the lectures have captions AND interactive transcripts. The audio is crisp and clear, as is the video without background noise or distractions. The dedication to accessibility has blown me away and is another big reason I plan to support Coursera by paying for the specialization path.

Dr. Chuck is an engaging lecturer even in virtual reality. The discussion boards are useful, but a bit confusing as you’re not allowed to publicly post code that could lead to an answer for other students (for obvious reasons, which I’ve forgotten a time or two already).

Because of this, you can’t publicly ask questions of the instructors and other members of the forum pointed questions about your code if you’re very close to getting the right output and just need clarification for a tweak or two. That part is a bit of a bummer, as MOOCs are specifically designed to maximize the number of learners that can benefit with the least amount of resources needed from the hosting institution. Because of this and the way my brain works, I had a fairly negative experience with one of the moderators who came down on me for posting code (and they were right to, as I said earlier I’d forgotten the rule about posting code), but did it in a very snarky sarcastic way which came through even in a forum post (that takes talent and a familiarity with social media practices that make it apparent that person should have known not to do that to someone who’s trying to learn how to do something on their own and relying on the help and good graces of others).

However, aside from the frustrations and singular truly negative experience, it’s important to understand that I received incredibly patient assistance from an online instructor that must have canned responses for students like me who post things which basically amount to: “derp, my code looks perfect but it’s not working.” That instructor’s patience and diligence and the materials culled from Dr. Chucks actual introductory programming course taught at the University of Michigan School of Information make this an experience with the potential value of that course’s cost of attendance.

I know about a bit of programming language skills by using c or c++. But I also wanted to learn about the python programming language, so I decided to go with Coursera & I want to say….waao…Dr. Chuck is awesome, the way he taught is pretty great… i mean to say that… this course is pretty awesome for everyone who wants to go with python programming language So, I’m highly recommending to go with this course.

A very good introduction to basic programming. Very easy for beginners in python who have already some programming background but still extremely useful to quickly and efficiently learn python basics. It was a worthwhile course. Entertaining as well. I just wish that there were more sample homework before the exercises so students could see how the lessons are applied to actual problems. Lecture videos were broken into small parts whereby it’s easy to understand and digest. The assessment given was relevant to what was taught for each segment. Navigating around course contents were easy.

Good work and nicely teached

Well it’s very important course and they have good knowledge about subject

They having good display with good scripting operations in style sheet

Python is now trending language and also having nice and easily learn design small coders also learn easily python

this gives you a certificate to keep resume

Full and good looking for interviewers

Well this is my opinion you use this and you will feel this is good python and

Coursera is providing good language with excellent professional s ilthis is a great job by them providing like this for who willing to learn but not having time and transport issues it helps a lot

coresera is providing the python for everybody Getting started with the python they having five chapter for basics as well as some what deep also they also provideing the continues language with python and python datascience

What do you like best?

There are some free courses that you only pay if you want the certification / tittle, it is great. Also the UX and UI is really good to come and go managing your own learning agenda, but it keeps you in track by dividing it in weeks of study

What do you dislike?

Sometimes its hard to keep track of all your courses, if you stop making progress, it kind of leave them behing, it does not tracks them down easily

Recommendations to others considering the product:

Learning while working, it is most important and having one format replied through different concepts, gains a lot of time. Sometimes it is hard to find the right course, but the forum they have has a lot of responses and they can point you in the right direction

What problems are you solving with the product? What benefits have you realized?

Learning while working, it is most important and having one format replied through different concepts, gains a lot of time.

This is a great course. The teacher not only knows his material, but has a lot of experience working with first time programmers and so knows what errors they are likely to make and what questions they are likely to ask and addresses them all. He is fun to listen to, unlike some moocs I have taken where the teachers were reading and got the intonation all wrong very distracting. This one wasn’t like that by far. He was interesting and even funny at times. The only issue I have is that if you are auditing the class, it isn’t as nice an experience. You can’t submit quizzes to see if you got them right and all your coding problems are marked wrong. You can still do the coding and the website will error check and all, but you won’t get the pass/fail grade to be sure you got it right. I worked through all the materials, including reading the chapters in the book in just four days. I’d say there is about 2 to 4 hours of work per “week” expected. So, great course, but Coursera has become more interested in making money than in those of us who must only audit. It is not worth my time to chase up financial aid for something I’m working through so quickly. I’d rather spend the time working on a portfolio for future work than to bother about all that. I’m disabled, so I have no money to through at the problem. So, if you can only audit the class, is it worth it? YES! Just prepared to be highly annoyed with Coursera. The problem isn’t the instructor’s fault and I’m glad to have the materials. The videos covers what’s in the book, but in an easy to understand way, so when you read the chapter associated with it, you can follow along without it being too dry or laborious. Then you are ready for the quiz and coding problem(s), and then a little wrap up material before moving on to the next lesson. I’m glad we are allowed to work ahead. I’m moving on to the second course in the specialization, which picks up where this one left off. If you want to learn Python or just “a” programing language to get a start or just dabble in programming, this is a great place to start!