boring

This was an excellent first course in Python. I found the 2 primary lecturers (Profs. Reznick and Oney) to be clear in their instruction. The examples and exercises were well thought out and took an incremental approach: that is, exercises started with "regurgitating" the new material that was presented and then extended it (and prior material) in subsequent exercises. The Runestone "textbook" was an excellent environment in which to read, program and experiment.

In general, I thought the course material was coherent for a first course, but the Turtle section seemed a bit out of place.

I really appreciated Prof Reznick's sense of humor, although I can understand that others might find it ap-PAUL-ing. Still, he comes across as a caring prof, whose tone of voice conveys "expert programmer" and sense of humor "sweet, caring guy." Al in all, not a bad combination. (yes, "expert programmer" is a kind way of saying "total MIT nerd," which in this context, is the highest of praise!)

I loved this course! I loved that the explanations were super-clear, as well as the examples, and training exercises were just enough difficult. I loved our workbook. The best part is that I hardly ever needed to use anything except for the lectures and workbook to understand the material and to use it on practice. And - yes, I loved how practice sometimes looked like real-life projects! Although I wish we had more of those. Overall, I am completely new to Python, and I truly enjoyed learning it with this course. I feel so much more confident right now compared to the first couple of days (when I actually thought that I'm too slow and I'll never be able to finish the course). I'm really proud of myself that I've finished it! And at the same time, I believe that partially this accomplishment is due to a very good organization and structure of the course. Thank you!

An excellent course expanding on details in a manner I've never seen in another course, e.g. showing how to identify list objects by the id function. Doing things in a practical and very thorough manner, emphasising daily practice, you are everyday offered a new set of questions and tasks to practice. Something I've up until now done by creating my own flash-cards. The course extends from not only showing Python program details, but also bringing in different programming perspectives; showing how to make things practical and to avoid easy but crucial errors, e.g. what naming convention to use for iterator and iterable. I've previously done a few Python courses, a few good ones here on Coursera, and practiced other programming languages in work for quite some time and this is the best Python course I've experienced so far.

Completely an admirable and brilliant course for those who want to make a perfect start in python as a beginner. The topics explained by the instructors are crystal clear. A lot of fun and adventure in this course. I personally liked it very much and feel that I would thrive in the world of python now.

The basics are cleared in every module like other python beginner courses, but the audacity of explanation and the ease of learning, along with very sharp programming techniques makes this course different from other courses.

The sub modules like "The Way of the Programmer" enhance your coding skills very well. I too grasped a lot of programming skills from this section. Even the Runestone tool has helped me in building a habit of practice. Overall, this was the best Python beginner's course I have now known.

I cannot say enough great things about this course! This is the course you want to take if you're new to Python. No other Python course clicked for me in the same way this one did. The Runestone interactive textbook is a huge help in practicing concepts you've learned and using the instant feedback to improve. If you are having trouble narrowing down which Python course to take, look no further if you truly want to understand the basics of Python.

I cannot wait to take the other courses in the specialization that this course is a part of. The instructors are great and the way the material is presented makes it easily understandable. Much like I did, you'll probably grow to have a special appreciation for the instructor Steve Oney and his signature sign-off: "That's all for now, until next time."

If you have no idea what Python is but you want to know it, and if you have no programming experience, this course is excellent for you.

Frankly speaking, I expected some more challenge, as this course is recommended to take after finishing "Python for Everybody" specialization, but alas.

On the other side, it's called "Python Basics", not "Python Advanced Level" and I learned some new information from this course too (methods causing mutation and creating new objects, aliases, difference between "==" and "is", etc.)

Anyways, this is just the first step of a Python 3 Specialization and it gives you a very solid knowledge of Python fundamentals.

Interactive Textbook used in the course is a great source of knowledge and practice. And videos provided by professors leave no chance to misunderstanding.

This course and the balance of courses 1-4 of the specialization were fantastic - I would highly recommend each. Course 5 (the capstone project) was an abomination. Basically zero instruction / guidance and very frustrating for anybody except decently experienced programmers. If courses 1-4 are your only exposure to Python, you could easily spend a month or more on this project. If getting the Specialization Certificate is very important to you, there are resources online that you can leverage to complete the project but that is done largely at the expense of any real learning, so I really hope UofM comes up with an alternative final project that is more consistent with the level of expertise attained in courses 1-5 (maybe something on implementing classic algorithms?).

I enjoy the lecture very much although I started this course with zero knowledge on programming and Python. I recommend this course for those who like to learn python as a new skills in their inventory. You will enjoy a structured materials that will not jump over complicating stuff, without building strong foundation that you need first. The videos are relatively short, just enough portion of a bite size material for your busy day. The reading and exercise that provided after each video is slightly more challenging. For 1 hour/day you should be able to complete 1 reading and 1 video or even more depending on your personal circumstance. Don't worry about exercise, or I rather called homework. It designed to make you more fluent in writing a code like playing a game.

This was a great course. Perfect course for you if you are a beginner in python and have no knowledge on how to start learning. I've tried lots of python courses before coming here. But all of them had the same fate. I either got bored in after listening to some lecture or the pace was too slow. Have to say, after i started watching the videos I kept going forward. The course was well paced and the lecturers were full of spirit. It took me hours to sit through a lesson in my previous course, but it took me only 1 week to finish the entire course.I'm hoping to continue others courses in this specialization. Also,thank you so much for the financial aid. I'm really grateful.

Enjoy the fireworks.(You will know what i mean once you are enrolled in this course.)

I liked this course too much. It has a particular methodology, which combine videos, and a dynamic book with readings and excercices on line, to practice every lesson in a clear way. It is not necesary to install Python in the computer because the book has an interactive version, where one can practice an get an inmediate and complete feedback about what has been done, showing the mistakes and suggesting hints to solve the problems. This tool is fantastic. This course has being well designed to learn gradually the basics of this programming language in a natural way, thanks to the lectures offered by excellent teachers who have a good pedagogy to teach.

I really enjoyed the small portioned lessons. I appreciated having examples of the assignments run through with the instructors for a more in-depth explanation. I appreciated the Code Lens to break down what the code was doing in the process. The assignment examples and the additional readings helped solidify each chapter unit and it felt like the course went very quickly. I liked the corny jokes and the helpful programmer tips that the professors offered. I felt motivated to continue even when it took me a long time to solve a coding problem. Thank you so much for the care, structure, and knowledge you put into this Python course. Liz

A great course to get, as the title suggests, "Python Basics".

I especially like "the way of the programmer" part which teaches the good habits of coding, so that you always code from a place of understanding, and the build-it-small-and-keep-it-working method really makes a lot of sense (not just for coding in fact).

This course gave me a good foundation and the language to continue exploring how to leverage data analytics (potentially with Python or any other tool) in my current job and career. My goal was not to become a python expert, but to be able to communicate with one for collaboration, and this course really helped me do that.

Programming seemed like magic or something unnecessarily complex to me. However, I decided to try and learn something about it. A close friend recommended Python 3 as a great starting language. This course was a perfect start. The interactive textbook is amazing. I also recommend downloading some software on your PC as well as it will provide you with additional tools for tinkering with your code.

The proscribed 1-hour limits on the tests were too short for me, but that is more due to me being relatively new to programming. The tasks themselves (even the most complex ones) take a few minutes at max if you know what you are doing.

I thought the notebook presentation was easy to follow and clear.

I preferred working my way through the notebook but the complications of UN-updated completed assignments made tracking my progress too confusing. I think that i should be able to go straight through the notebook and have progress updated correctly, immediately.

Given that i found the lectures too time consuming and, therefore, wanted to work through the notebook, I'd like to know if there are straightforward instructions as to how to do that and have everything updated with a clear guide as to which assignments are due.

Thanks, i enjoyed it and am continuing on.

This is a wonderful course which is not for people who are beginning to program for the first time. I would advise all people who are learning the python programming language for the first time, please take the "Python for everybody Specialization" which is also available in Coursera and offered by University of Michigan so that you will feel this course a bit more interesting. This advise is also given in a reading material in this course too. But, this course is a wonderful course for someone who is a bit used to python. Thanks to University of Michigan, Coursera, and all the Instructors for this amazing course.

This was the best 'intro to Python basics' course that I've ever taken. The combination of video lectures, reading content, exercises, check understanding, practice, and way of the programmer made this a better experience that any face to face educational experience I've ever had. This program allowed me to learn and internalize and embrace / practice each new concept at my speed and comfort level and pace. One of the most exciting takeaways is to have learned the fundamentals of how to write 'elegant' code, The Way of The Programmer was definitely my favorite section for formal instruction of best practices!

I come from Humanities background and my knowledge was limited to copy pasting given scripts on python shell and hitting 'run'. However, Python coding is very essential to advance in my field (Natural Language Processing). So I had been trying for a couple of years using multiple resources to start learning python. But I always used to hit a wall when my code didn't work and I couldn't find my mistake. The amazing interactive textbook used in this course solved all my problems. I was able to go through the entire course without having to ask anything to anyone. Loved the textbook!

Excellent course with expert teachers and good quality materials. I learned a lot and I highly recommend this course.

One of the best things about the material was the teachers’ careful explanations and the interactive textbook. Things that had previously confused me in other programming courses were cleared up by the careful and patient teaching in this one.

My only issue was that it was hard to read one of the teacher’s screens on my tablet because he hadn’t made the screen size big enough but it was readable on the computer. Only a minor fly in the otherwise perfect ointment.

Excellent course! Coursera has improved my practical skill in programming due a lot of practices and guidance. Perfect course for you if you are a beginner in python and have no knowledge on how to start learning. The course is designed with the accompanying online textbook in mind, so it gave me the opportunity to look at the text before the video and that really improved my understanding. Also I found the exercises in the book very helpful. The assignments and quiz questions were spaced frequently enough to ensure I was learning the material as I progressed. Thank you.

One of the best course not only to learn python but also to learn programming.

It give you every details that you need to know about the basic about programming using python language. Those details also (I believe) would be helpful to learn other languages. In other courses that I have seen, they do not give you the details information, so when you are coding, become a bit difficult to understand what you are doing. But, in this course you will not only learn what code produces what output, also you will learn what is going on under the hood. (For example, using codelens)

This is the best Python introduction course that I've participated in. I have participated in quite a few courses, but no other course info stuck with me for long time.

In my opinion this course is structured greatly. I like the interactive textbook because there you can not only practice and solve problems but you can easily 'play around' with new topics and what will happen when you change different things in the code.

I definitely recommend this course to whoever is new to programming or a programmer that what to familiarize himself or herself with Python.

This was my first Coursera course and I really enjoyed it. This is a great start to learning Python. It provides clear explanations and examples to reinforce the topics. I have dabbled with Python and other programming languages before so this course had some redundancy that I didn't need but I went through the motions anyway to help the information stick (for me). I thought the course content had good flow and presentation. The Runestone environment was really neat and helpful for the readings, exercises, and practice. I definitely recommend the course.

Spectacular course! There were so many great aspects to it (the very pleasing introduction in which we meet everyone involved in the Python 3 Programming Specialization, the lectures, the interactive textbook, and the practice tool). The interactive textbook makes learning a pleasure. The practice tool ensures that one gets to reinforce didactics. I highly recommend this course to those who want to learn Python programming or wish to improve their basic knowledge of the language. P.S. Hope you enjoy Professor Resnick's "nerdy pun humor." I certainly did!

Just finished the course. I have to say it is really worthy to give it a try. The Runestones with some challenging questions and detailed explanations do improve your understanding! Even using advanced skills (e.g regex, list comprehensions ...) will help you deal with the problems more quickly, trying to solve it with the most basic and fundamental concepts will help you understand more about the data structures and algorithms. The spaced repetition also helps a lot, but the forum is not that active, which makes me have to ask on StackOverflow sometimes.