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The third part of the course is a good introduction to the capability of Python in writing search codes and in scraping the web and other applications. Assignments are more difficult to tackle than in the previous two courses probably because the materials needed to solve them were either not well explained or were explained in later lessons. For example, the instruction for a particular assignment gave a starting sample code that was claimed to be the closest to the code to do the assignment, a statement that turned out to be wrong. It was not close to it at all. This area should be looked into for future learners. The learners' minds should be prepared from the beginning that there might be a need to go outside the course materials to tackle some assignments.

Overall, again, the course is an excellent introduction to what Python can do in search programs using regular expressions and in scraping the web and other applications. To be very good at these topics, like any other courses, learners will need extensive practice on their own, as most of the assignments were completed through a hand-holding technique using the provided sample codes. 

Overall, I am happy with what I am learning in python programming, and perhaps, I would use this new knowledge to work as a web developer someday. Thank you, Dr Charles, University of Michigan, and Coursera. Keep up the good work of providing affordable and accessible education.

This is the third of 5 courses in Python 2.7, so the full 5 courses are excellent for a Beginner to become a solid Intermediate, this Web Access course alone should only be taken by those with some Python programming experience (like the prior 2 beginning courses on programming and data structures in Python). I did the course using Python 3.5, from Anaconda, after starting the more challenging MIT 6.00 courses (2 of them), which use 3.5 but are faster paced yet with more challenging problems. [Some issues switching from 2.7 to 3.5 -- there now is a revised Open Source book using py3x] Dr. Chuck's course offers true high quality learning but allowing me to work my 40 hrs /week and do the course, altho it took me two sessions to finish. Now fully completed after switching to the next later session. NOTE - these MOOCs allow one to switch to the next session when one falls behind; this is better for getting TA help in the forums when there is a problem. Thanks!

(above is same as Class Central, below is new)

How could it be improved? By having for each required assignment a similar but more difficult optional assignment, which can be further discussed in the forums. I'd expect that switching auto-grade assignments & sample code to be py3.5, especially the print() change, would be fairly easy and allow students to choose which version to do the assignment it.

I really appreciate all of Dr. Chuck's lectures and courses. On this one though, I missed the 'picture in picture' feature of the slides- in courses 1 & 2 the slide content was always visible (with Dr. Chuck lecturing in a split screen), but in this course the content is interlaced with the video of Dr. Chuck, and it makes it harder to see what's going on with the code and his annotations when it's flipping back and forth between his face and what he's doing. I didn't know how much I appreciated that slide format until it was gone! I also prefer the long (40min/lecture) format, as opposed to all these short units as separate video things-- it made it much harder to go back and find/rewatch something because I couldnt remember what short segment the topic was covered in, as opposed to just searching a giant transcript. Also (maybe this is just me?) the links to navigate within the course aren't there (just below the floating 'coursera' header), so I had to constantly go to the home page and re-find my place after submitting assignments- extra aggravating with the increased number of shorter videos. But, I felt content is 5/5 as always- just didn't like the new presentation format. I write this only as feedback, not a complaint, I'm truly very grateful and pleased with the courses.

Although considerably harder than the first two courses, it is still mostly well explained and worthy of 4 stars. Where it falls down is in the JSON section I think. Although I agree that XML is richer, it is not harder to use: in fact, I think it is easier (but that may be my bias of 25 years' exposure to SGML/XML with a language that processes SGML/XML *brilliantly* but is almost exclusive to publishing (OmniMark). The JSON nested dictionaries and lists are just plain confusing and hard to read IMHO and if you did not have the sample code it would be very hard to complete the first assignment of Week 6. The bit that Chuck fails to point out about XML is that it has an inherent bias to handling complex *documents* rather than extracts of repetitive data. It is impossible to mimic Docbook or any other complex document with JSON, and it was a bit annoying that this key point was omitted (or at least I don't recall it being pointed out - all that was said was JSON is better, easier, preferrable, etc.). Overall though, this was a very good course again, though if you had little expeience of either XML or JSON, you could struggle and/or will take longer to fathom this course.

This was my third course within the Python for Everybody Specialization. I must say that I really enjoy Professor Severance's classes --and I started from zero knowledge on coding/python to a point where I'm retrieving and parcing data from the web! However, this course was somehow much more full of "gaps" and "jumps"---diferently from the previous two, in which I could follow what was happening (and undertand what we were doing), here it was more like copy and paste feeling. In many moment the "classes" and explanations was far to difficult to follow --as if we were jumping. What makes this specialization so interesting is tha fact that it takes very complex processes and make it understandable ----but not in this third course. And I don't think its only because certain "coding" "parts" had to be like that---I felt it was rushed and much less carefully delivered. That's my sincere and constructive (I hope) review!

Some of the instructions for the assignments were vague. For example, I spent entirely too much time trying to use regular expressions with the first Beautiful Soup assignment. I eventually found a staff post in the discussion forum saying not to use regular expressions, but that information would have been very helpful in the assignment's instructions, especially given that substantial video lecture time was spent on regular expressions. Also, I think the time estimates for assignment completion were unrealistic (and unnecessary) in this course. In the first two courses of the Python for Everybody specialization, I finished all of the lectures and assignments much quicker than the estimated time. In this course, it took me much longer than the estimated time. On the whole, though, I'm very pleased with the course. I learned far more effectively than I would have by just reading a book on Python.

Once again, another excellent course from Dr. Chuck. However, the Coursera format has changed from that of the previous two courses and the submission of quizzes and assignments are now locked; they don't show progress or get marked as completed unless you purchase the certification. So, if you're auditing the course, don't bother with the quizzes and don't expect the course to show your progress (mine still says I'm on week one) or be marked as completed in your profile even though you've watched all the videos and submitted the assignments.Dr. Chuck, I understand that University of Michigan has to find a way to monetize these courses. However, since the previous courses used auto graders, and this course seems to as well, I'd like to request that the quiz and assignment features be unlocked so auditors can see course progress and completion like the previous two courses.

Now we're cooking with gas. This is course three of five in the University of Michigan's Python for Everybody series and things start to become real. Where Course 1 was very action/reaction in learning Python's basics, Course 2 was more abstract (and the weakest of the three so far), Course 3 builds on the other two and you get to taste Python's real world potential. Granted, this is all an introduction series and nobody is walking away from these courses into a full time developer position - but you do begin feel functionally dangerous (in a good way). The biggest takeaway from the course is giving you that taste of what is possible. We don't know how to do it yet (and the course isn't going to go beyond the intro depth) but after this third course you're likely getting smitten by Python and know you want to avidly take your learning beyond this series.

This course, unlike the previous ones, seemed a little boring, to be honest, but maybe that's because this is the very first time I was introduced to many topics (even though I'm a current computer science student) that were taught in this course. Another thing is that it was more about using the codes that are already given and modify them to get the desired output. Because of that, I'm still not sure whether I have to learn or memorize all of the lines written in a particular file or I'd be well of just by knowing what line of code is doing what and by being able to modify and use them to get the work done. Google Maps and Twitter API is also shown in this course, so hopefully in the future when I will be I need to use them, I'll rewatch the videos and follow up with the sample code. Overall, it was a good experience.

I enjoyed the subject matter of this course, and Dr. Chuck is a great teacher, however I have a nitpick to make about the assignments.

I understand that writing similar code several times can be monotonous and sometimes we were required to use some code we weren't fully taught yet, but being provided sample code to edit frustrated me for more than it was worth. I would much prefer to stumble through the learning process myself than try to make sense of new information in code I had nothing to do with. I spent much longer trying to process what was going on in the sample code than actually solving the assigned problems.

A word of advice for anyone with a brain like mine: It is easier and better for learning if you try your best to write your code from scratch and only look at the sample code for guidance if you get stuck.

Overall another good course. It was perhaps not as complete at the end earlier on in the course. The last section on APIs was sometime confusing or at least glossed over some programming constructs. However, Chuck Severance has a difficult balancing act to perform. On the one hand he has tried very had to make Python programming accessible to new-coders while at the same time providing a useful and usable introduction to some very powerful concepts and methods. Overall I think he is doing an outstanding job and provides a very good basis to build on. As a bonus, I think the interviews with the computer science & internet tech luminaries are outstanding! Great to hear directly from folks who contributed so much to the development of the field.

The course was really good for me to learn, as I already had a basic understanding of programming before taking this course. However, I believe the web scraping exercises could benefit from being more up-to-date, including scraping websites that use JavaScript rendering, that wildly use now. The assignments are helpful in improving my comprehension of the code, but for those who are gradually progressing from the first course, this course may present a significant jump in difficulty. I am not a native English speaker and have found some of the assignments difficult to comprehend, resulting in wasted time trying to solve problems incorrectly. Providing more examples could be helpful in better understanding the assignment instructions.

The difficulty in this course was highly pumped up comparing the previous two courses, the balancing wheels were taken off and the learner is subtlety led into the direction of reading documentation of modules or google them to get a detailed understanding of them.though i struggled a bit through the XML assignment i can mostly understand the courses approach as to why worked assignments are not the answer to every problem, unless we struggle a bit to solve the assignments, in my opinion it wont stick with you.to get a quick gist of xml and json this course is on point but if you're looking to get in-depth knowledge i would recommend taking some more elaborative courses in these technologies, overall it was sufficient.

I moved to the US a couple years ago and started my career from scratch in completely different sphere - Quality Assurance. I never supposed myself to be a technical person and felt uncomfortable with IT things. I have in my head the combination of tech terms and tools mixed up with huge gaps, this course helped me to systematize my knowledge and feel more confident and engaged with what I am doing. I completed 3/4 sessions and would rate the first two 5 stars, and probably give a little bit less, 4 stars, to the third one, only because sometimes I had to find on the Internet additional materials which were not covered by lecture and course materials to complete my assignments.

Dr. Chuck is great! I've been his fan for years! The assignments are rigid.

Here is my only concern:

Why do I have to use the libraries that are recommended by Dr. Chuck. Can't I chose my own? I encountered some problems with 'urllib' module. I wanted to complete this course in a few days. I could complete all my assignments without having to install urllib, but for the last assignment, the assignment did not accept a solution I came up with 'requests' module. I had to crack my head open to fix the issues with that library, then submit the assignment. It was totally unnecessary. In real world scenarios, I've always used 'requests'. I've only used 'urllib' once or may be twice.