Where to begin...

1) I'm not sure why Duke decided to have a Javascript course in the Java specialization. That's the only reason I took this course. I'll never understand that decision and it was a huge waste of my time (yes, I know I could've skipped this course, but I'm a completist and want the specialization certificate).

2) The first two weeks were actually pretty good, but Week 3 is where the wheels fell off. The lectures and the assignments started to diverge tremendously. Its normally fine in education, even encouraged, to not give students all the answers and let them figure it out on their own, buts it incredibly frustrating to do this in coding languages since they are so precise, and also since Duke seems to want to use their own special library that you can't check. Some of the assignments had written out instructions with absolutely no clues on how they should be formatted in JavaScript. WHAT?! There's no way I can figure out code formatting on my own, especially with your special functions and library. Which brings me to point 3.

3) I get why Duke uses a friendlier coding program with their own library, but it makes all the methods I've learned worthless in the real world. Why bother learning them if they don't exist anywhere else?

Overall, I dreaded have to log-in and continue this course everyday. Luckily I had other programming languages I could do to keep my spirits up while I trudged along with Javascript. Hopefully the Java portion of this specialization goes much better.

I's not exactly class for the beginners. First half covers HTML and CSS and quite understandable and easy. Although, it might also help that I had class completely on HTML and CSS in the past, so I actually know what to do to write necessary code. The second part is on JavaScript. And here is where problem starts (at least for me). I didn't take JavaScript class in the past and it was all new for me. Professors try to explain it in few lectures 10-15 minutes each and then they expect you to write couple of programs and to make some project from scratch in few days. Sorry, maybe it's just me, but I got to have much more then about an hour of explanation to do so. I would highly recommend anyone who is new to JavaScript to take JavaScript class first and then to start this one. And no, I'm not new to programming.

Syllabus not well designed. A lot of guessing when doing assignments. Videos do not correlate with future learning objectives. It's ovious that people are having issues learning when students are posting "getting stuck" or " how do I solve this". I was excited to start this course, but lost my motivation because I was guessing and looking for examples everywhere. We get no feedback from course faciliators. DUKE has a well rounded reputation and this course gives it a bad name/reputation. Please help students better understand by doing some QA/QC is course design to better understand codind and programming techniques. It's OK to give the answers to problems...We learn from seeing what right looks like.

Speaking of beginner level it is good until you are learning css in it . but as java script starts this course becomes a headache , not because javascript is difficult but they made it difficult . instead of going with basics they teach you to manipulate images . which is not every one's interest field . they should improve their javascript course . other than that it is ok .

I've finished this class and got my certificate but I don't suggest this class to any other beginners. They lack of a lot of basic knowledge and most questions asked will not get answered. There is no mentor for this class so be very careful when you start it. it means you have to teach yourself. It will be a great class for people who know javascript well just take it for a refresh, but not me as a learner. For example , new SimpleImage() is used all the time as a function but no explaination on this function. I feel very furstrated with this class. I was able to manage this class and pass it because i googled a lot of things, however in return my knowledge is very chopped not systematical.

If you just started , quite before it went too far.

This course started off okay, but unfortunatly the deeper I got into the course the more I realized that the teachers really don't understand padagogy. The tests were long and caused more frustration than they help reinforce the material. This course brought me back to my days in college where I wondered if my professors really knew what they were doing, or if they were just writing long tests to frustrate their students and show that they were doing work. I have decided that programming isn't for me and that it's time to move on.

worst intro ever

i want to leave

My prior experience in programming consisted of several lessons on Pascal back in school about 13 years ago, so (apart from vague if/else memories) I started with zero experience. I found this course quite exciting, often challenging, but in a good way. For some reason, "peer review grade" is stated in the course info, but there is no such thing. You might post a link to your webpage for your classmates to review, but it's optional and doesn't affect your grades. To complete the course, you'll need to do your coding and answer quiz questions based on that. Basically, nobody ever sees your code, because posting whole programs in the forums is forbidden, and the only grades you get come from quizzes. You can post a piece of code if you're stuck though. I can't fully approve this approach, but in general the course is fine.

In my opinion, this course might be a great opportunity to decide whether you enjoy spending time coding or not. If not - you might still have some fun.

Great course! I was almost a beginner, I have had some experience with HTML and CSS before. This course introduced me in an entertaining way to programming and I am very excited about starting with JAVA. I really liked the short videos that cover the most important things for the practice. I also liked the tasks, they were short and fun. Some things were tricky and challenging for me, but this is what I like, since it helps me to understand things by going into detail. However, I had somebody around to help me when I was stuck and didn't rely on the forum.

It's great for me as a woman to see a female instructor (All instructors did a great job!). I am almost 40 and was shy to start programming. This course showed me that it is possible to learn programming and that it is fun. Can't wait to continue the specialisation!

Not an easy course for totally new beginners, I would say this course is between beginner and intermediate. Would prefer if instructors made a few more examples and could make a new section on how to approach some of the exercises and solve them. It's true that the best way to learn is to make some research and keep on trying, but for the time purposes of the course my suggestion would be to dive a bit more into the exercises, they are very time-consuming and beginners will/may struggle.

Overall I do consider this to be an excellent course, very informative, and will give a beginner a good insight on what programming is and how to research and formulate algorithms! Definitely encourages me to continue studying!

A very good course that teaches many interesting and surprising things. I admit I was unaware of this material. Completely unaware. Creating beautiful webpages (HTML, CSS), creating and modifying images with JavaScript, encrypting and decrypting images in other images !!! Ooooh !!! What an unexpected joy !!! I did not know someone can do such things all by himself. I'm really happy to have gone through this course. One thing. It takes time. I think that the time required that is given in the information about the course is unreal. Anyway I wholeheartedly suggest this course to anyone interested in science, computers, and is energetic enough to absorb this amazing stuff.

I recently completed the (Programming Foundations with JavaScript, HTML, and CSS) on Coursera, and I must say it exceeded my expectations in every way. The course content was comprehensive, well-structured, and presented in a clear and engaging manner. The instructors were knowledgeable, and enthusiastic, and provided valuable insights throughout the course. Overall, I am extremely satisfied with my experience on Coursera and would highly recommend this course to anyone looking to expand their knowledge in (Programming Foundations with JavaScript, HTML, and CSS). Whether you're a beginner or an experienced professional, this course offers something valuable for everyone.

The course provides complete information and guidance for a beginner in Web designing. Me being unfamiliar with programming before starting here, our mentors and teachers provided study material in such a manner helped me (a fresh comer) learn HTML, CSS and JS quickly and pretty well. In a month, you really do learn a lot. You require a good amount of self-discipline and dedication for learning any new subject, specially if you're juggling it with a job or being a university student. But the quality of lecture videos, the material provided for extra learning and the weekly amount of work is perfect for coaching you in Web Designing.

Good Luck !!!

Na primeira semana do curso, eu pensei em desistir pois achei que o curso era muito simples. Eu não desisti porque não gosto de coisas inacabadas. Fico feliz por não ter desistido. A partir da segunda semana, eu me encantei com o curso e o tanto que ele trouxe de novidades para mim. Este é o melhor curso que já fiz. Este curso me manteve totalmente focada, dedicada a aprender o máximo possível. Tenho mais de 50 páginas de anotações relevantes que servirão de apoio para meus próximos trabalhos. Parabéns aos professores pela dedicação e entusiasmo. Espero revê-los em breve!

Muito obrigada por tudo!

Happy coding!

This course which is a first part of the very specialization is an amazing way to learn the basics of the html, css and java script. Everything is done correctly, except for few flaws that some instructions may have. Sometimes some words are swapped with one another, what may cause problems in understanding the task, but if you read the instrucion with understanding + you go to the forums, you will be able to comprehend the material completely :)

Thank You to all the students who were always there to help, and of course all the instructors!

Regards, Amelia R.

This is so far the best online course for web development. Its difficulty is moderately hard which is a good thing. This course works through the fundamentals of programming and computational thinking. More specifically this course really worked through the algorithms. This not that average html css element teaching course. This is really challenging. I am feeling very confident about this.

Well structured course and non trivial exercises that challenge you and keep you motivated. Practice is emphasized each time. Exercises are nonmandatory for grading but absolutely neccesary for master understanding of the basic topics. Great course overall.

the course is amazing but I felt like the assignments at the end were tough and needs more knowledge than that thought in the videos

Difficult to do alone, very challenging and ALL worth it. The course challenges your problem solving skills.

thank you coursera

it was an awesome experience taking this course, I think the assignments might need some improvements and be more clear but in overall the course is worth it, can't wait to finish the other courses, and it's not beginner friendly.

good course for the understanding of basic programming knowledge, but it feels outdated with the use of variables.

There are some very good concepts and attempts at teaching here but there is a lot for frustration too. I have some experience working on GUI programming not quite the same but I understand that sometimes things just don't work the way you want... in this case though lots of concepts aren't explained or aren't linked together. We are given very specific examples without enough reference. When learning new things you build on the old, you can't just say in the last lesson we learned concept x so here is concept y. Now go figure concept z using concept x and y without any knowledge of z. It would be nice to take a few extra minutes to build from the base up so you know x+y=z. We never got that. The lectures are fairly informative and you do get the chance to learn a lot of new concepts but you aren't given enough to really implement your learning and by the time you figure it out you're usually so frustrated that you don't want to continue. The first week was awesome and I really enjoyed it. My webpage turned out well and it was easy to use but once JavaScript was added in the learning became disjointed. I'm disappointed that I didn't get to see that before I paid for the course because if week 2 was the first week I would not have taken this course.

The worst thing though is that I found that the "Try It" options came before we learned the concept! So I would grit and struggle and fail for hours (the time estimates are so far off for this course) and then finally decide to just move on, only to learn the key concept I was missing wasn't taught until the next lesson! That is so unbelievably frustrating as a learner. On top of that, some things just didn't work in the Duke Learn to Code Program for no reason causing me to have to export my code and refresh the page then reenter my code. So I would spend so much time thinking I did something wrong when I didn't.

Then when I was working in CodePen on a problem I actually did everything correctly but the files from the Duke website wouldn't come over wasting time trying to fix my code I went to the forums to find that there is a coding error on Duke's side that prevents the image library from working properly. They provided a solution but that solution does not work! I wasn't able to test something I worked on for hours and I was so frustrated. Why wasn't that issue added to the "Try It" instructions? Then I wouldn't have wasted my time.

The forums are fairly helpful because the mentors reply and are very good for the most part with their explanations; but not one of my classmates replied which is interesting to me because I saw one post where over 20 people reviewed my code and didn't know why it wasn't working. Most of the posts I saw also showed the frustration I felt with some of these concepts.

So, I think if you have some experience with JavaScript and watch the videos in order without stopping each week then go back and do the "Try It" options you will be more successful with this course. I certainly don't recommend for a person without any experience and I would reorder/restructure everything in this course to be better for the learner.

It was a good experience to learn front end development. But, I feel this course was not at a beginner level. I could understand some concepts only because I had prior knowledge, so there could have been a better clarity on topics. The discussion forum feels dead, I had to debug my code myself which is a good thing for building experience and knowledge, but it just defeats the whole point of having a discussion forum. The reading material could be improved for better readability and understandability.

I wanted to complete the specialization very badly as it would enhance my resume, but now I have doubts about it.