The course starts well, but as it progresses it narrows too much on JAVA and specific tools. In my opinion it should be renamed as "Software Testing in JAVA" or similar and state on the course description that JAVA knowledge is required.

In the end I spent more time fighting with Eclipse, Java configuration, Mockito and the specific tools than I did learning about software testing.

Hopefully, this will help someone.

Total garbage. The course was created more than 5 years ago, using an outdated version of tools, that course authors now insist to install in order to run their samples. Running outdated JAVA and Gradle is so much fun, reading a huge list of project import exceptions instead of smooth inspecting the code.

Ok, let's assume you're an expert in JAVA and Eclipse and can bypass all that nightmare and somehow install and configure the environment (sure, that is an introduction in testing, that is what you should focus on - install outdated crap on your machine).

In order to finish this course, you'll need to write some unit tests, that cool. I mean it could be if a test runner that verifies test quality could provide at least some, just a bit meaningfully test result. Instead, it shows you, three types of output.:

1. /grader/CoffeeMaker_JUnit/M1/build/test-results/test/TEST-edu.ncsu.csc326.coffeemaker.CoffeeMakerTest.xml (No such file or directory)

2. M1: -0.05555555555555555 *** Learner did not properly terminate mutant version! ***

3. Grading failed

We encountered the following warnings when grading this part:

Grader error: Malformed feedback. Please visit the Discussion forum to see if your peers are experiencing similar errors. If the error isn't resolved in 24 hours, please reach out to Coursera through our Help Center.

Very informative and user friendly. Ok, you'll say I can use the forum to find a workaround or at least some guidance to find the root of the problem. Well, the good news that they do have a forum, the bad news that is not moderated at all. 90% of posts are about the same issues I describe here with begging to send them a version that can be accepted by coursera's test runner bot.

If you're ok with all the facts mentioned above, subscribe, pay and suffer.

This course is a waste of time. If you are waiting for an introductory testing course, this is not the course you need. The subject matter you are supposed to learn is not the one that is later taught in the course.

It is very oriented to automation but for an introductory course it does not explain well what a test is, how to define test cases/test plans/test suites/test runs, it does not teach how to report defects... In other words, the basics of testing are not taught.

The support of the organization is null, they don't answer the messages of the forum, they censor comments...

In short, it is not worth it. Neither pay for it.

The course is a good introduction to testing software in general, but there are many other aspects of testing not covered. If you don't need the automated testing skills and just want the Testing knowledge maybe seek out a course that provides that e.g. something like the ISTQB foundation training. The assignments are mostly Java programming assignments, and while the java coding itself is not that advanced, you need to be resilient in your troubleshooting because the automatic grader that passes/fails your assignment is very terse in its messages. It can be very frustrating to know that your code does what is needed, but the grader can't mark it for a technical reason, but the messages from the grader don't help you understand what the cause is. There is no help or assistance from the registered teachers/mentors from what I saw in the discussion forums, all the help and advice came from other students who had the same issues. If the course team could just a) improve the automatic grader to provide better feedback when it fails, and b) gather all the known issues into a course troubleshooting document or sticky-post, that would save many students many hours of wasted time trying to submit the coding assignments.

Fair, well organised, good amount of material. If you are totally new to programming/testing this is not your intro course.

This class is absolutely horrible compared to MIT and UCSD courses. Ironically the testing used to test your code for this course is atrocious. They have hard coded everything, and have the worst error messages possible. Quite literally the worst programming course I've taken. I give it two stars because if you bash your head enough - you will learn.

This is the worst course on the platform. All the projects are about try/error. Course's owner never give you a real support or answer your mails, videos have really bad quality, each course student pray for help at the forum but is impossible to help others moreover if you need help too. Some advanced peers help you with code, but it's very difficult because platform have some bugs and sometimes gave you different score for the same code. Please, don't take this course, there are similar course on Coursera with better score.

Definitely not for beginners. Was having problems trying to complete the first assignment and couldn't find my answers in the discussion board.

Advanced level, I think. Requires you to be experienced in software testing

Spent 3 hours uploading different versions. It always show same error (/grader/UnitTestingGrader/correct/build/test-results/test/TEST-DemoTest.xml (No such file or directory). Purpose of this course is to learn software testing not to loosing time uploading files.

A very good course, i learned how to write a good test plan and how to deal with junit,jacoco and mockito which enriched my knowledge, but the instructions of the last assignment can be more clear that that

Escribo esta reseña en español, mi idioma natal, para evitar cualquier tipo de malentendido que pudiera surgir en la traducción. Este curso tiene un muy buen contenido teórico pero un contenido práctico totalmente caótico. Si bien la mayoría de los exámenes de elección múltiple están relativamente bien, algunos de estos contienen preguntas sobre cosas que se explican en semanas posteriores, de manera tal que el examen de la semana 1 pregunta cosas que se explican en la semana 4. Pero eso no es nada comparado con los ejercicios de programación. En los ejercicios de la semana 1 y 4, ambos tienen un sistema de calificación que valida el código de forma muy rudimentaria. Ese sistema devuelve mensajes de error totalmente incomprensibles incluso para alguien que ya sabe programar. Las últimas dos tareas de la semana 4 devuelven errores aún completando a la perfección todo lo requerido. Leyendo el foro de comentarios, me enteré que algunas de esas tareas se aprueban haciendo cosas que no están explicadas en las tareas. Perdí muchas valiosas horas tratando de entender esto. En definitiva, tuve que subir algo "mal hecho" para aprobar los trabajos. Y creo que lo peor del curso es la tarea de la semana 3, donde piden hacer un Test Plan con varios requerimientos que no se explican en las clases (exigen hacer un diagrama Gantt y un diagrama PERT, cosas que no se explican en lo absoluto y que no hubiese aprobado si no fuera porque lo aprendí en la facultad). Muchos alumnos han volcado esta preocupación en los foros y ninguno de los docentes asignados a este curso ha respondido algo. Otra cosa que me fastidió es que mi TestPlan fue plagiado parcial y totalmente por dos alumnos que me tocó corregir, evidentemente porque no sabían como hacer la tarea. Finalmente, en mi opinión personal, creo que este curso debería durar como mínimo 6 semanas, ya que las últimas dos semanas exigen demasiadas cosas que apenas son tratadas en los cursos, con nulo soporte a los alumnos que tienen dificultades para seguir adelante. Desde ya, a cualquier persona que esté comenzando a aprender sobre Unit Testing , jamás le recomendaría este curso.

very bad and non structuring course. Almost no or very less technical information shared and even that was way behind the assignments specially in week4.

Programming Assignment: Building Unit Tests instruction unclear

tons of people cant solve this assignment and get stuck

Very old task files and unsupported to do with recent eclipse and others IDE.

Forgotten and unsupported course!

The assignments instructions are very poor!

I love this course, the explanation is great, the assignments are very challenging. I learned many things from software testing. Thanks, Prof. Mike Whalen and Mr. Kevin Wendt

This course has the potential to be a 5 star one but unfortunately due to few issues, it just isnt. The instructors need to take more initiatives to better the content.

1. Literally zero modeation of content in discussion groups. Assignment solutions are downright being shared amongst everyone freely. A lot of students are just copy pasting assignment solutions provided by others and passing the course. This is mainly happening due to poor explanation, outdated course content (Prime example being forced to use outdated Java 8 for building assignment projects when the present running version is Java 18) and no proper help to students regarding problems they are facing.

2. Please provide the eclipse project material that is being used in the training videos. This will help students get more hands on experience to experiment and hence learn more, leading to much better idea in solving the final assignmants.

3. Make the assignment grader more robust and flexible in terms of accepting solutions from different IDEs and not being limited to Eclipse exclusively.

Too much problem to resolve the assigments and cero help from the tutors

Realmente un curso que me exigió muchísimo. Muchas gracias por el conocimiento.

Test assignments grading techniques can be improved and it can be more flexible and transparent.

The instructors did a good job but the automatic grader for the last two assignments did not give proper feedback as to what went wrong. It caused me to spend way more time on the assignment than advertised. I have 35+ experience developing software and have tons of experience unit testing.

not useful

the coding assignments are not good.the error messages thrown are not very clear.the ide which they suggested is eclipse but with jdk 8 .if u have access to discussion forums once go through them ,many are facing many issues and no solution. what to do in assignments is itself not that clear forget how to do.u don't know why u are not getting full score in assignments because the error message thrown are not very clear.in some assignments the file which they gave don't pass the judge what ever u do.u have to download other assignments file and modify it to pass.if u go through the discuss forums u rarely find solution to a problem, all u find is students asking their problems, and not getting any help regarding that and ends up asking for solutions.

"This is the first time taking a class with Coursera.org, so the experience was unique to me. I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but I am very pleased with this format. The instructor Mike Whalen and Kevin Wendt were very knowledgable, worked at a good pace. The assignments were very challenging. I would definitely recommend Coursera.org to others and I hope to have the opportunity to attend more training classes with Coursera.org. God Bless and keep learning..."

Gilbert Simon Baidya - Loma Linda, CA