Using Databases with Python

A Great Course. Thank you Dr. Chuck! ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎

When this course was originally developed, at least 2 years, ago, it must have been a decent course for its intended audience, which,most likely, were people attending a live course.
Unfortunately, the course has some serious structural flaws that time and the online media have exacerbated.
First of all, the course was originally built around python 2 and had to be ported to python 3.
As a consequence, there are often reminders of how this or that thing was changed from a version to the next, which is just a waste of students' time.
The many videos about historical bits are entertaining but do not really add any value to the course, since they do not talk about the technology but just about what the creator was thinking when they came up with the idea.
As an example, the video about REST API, which nowadays is quite used, did not even explain what REST API is.

The concepts in the course are not disclosed in a well structured way because the student is not being provided many of the necessary details to understand the why, other than the how things are done. Although this makes sense in an course that is just meant to introduce the student to a subject, students are not taught how to find further information about missing details by themselves until course 4, which is simply too late, and it is also explained in a sloppy way.
During the whole course, I have seen the instructor typing actual code probably 3 or 4 times.
The instructor is there to show you that some code was written to do a certain job but he will not show you how he (?) put the code together and the reasoning behind his workflow.

This approach, which also makes heavy use of powerpoint slides, is a very old way of teaching concepts that has been proved wrong a long time ago and does not help students retaining information, for the simple reason that they are not engaged in the making of the code but are just asked to get to a specific solution by using the 90% completed code.

Quite often I found myself going on the python website, stackexchange or youtube to look for more detailed explanations about concepts that in this course are provided "as is" and have to be accepted per faith. Do not expect to learn how to use functions, classes or how to read the documentation just by learning from this course.
Another serious flaw is that the instructor does not bother to introduce the debugger/visualizer (which are extremely useful) nor how to effectively work with files.

Most of the exercises are on the Extremely easy side, with difficulty spikes caused by the foggy explanations during course 2 and 3. Course 4 is mostly a waste of time because you are basically using code already written for you and you just need to provide a database file that satisfies the search criteria.
Course 4 is totally obsolete now.
I have only finished this course because I paid for it but this course does not really teach you how to use python to work with databases, rather how to repeat a limited amount of actions to get specific results.

This was my first online coding course of any kind. I graduated in the early 90s with a Mechanical Engineering degree, and as part of that curriculum had to take several programming classes. I remember turning to a friend and asking "Can you imagine how fun it would be if you could do this for a living?" Unfortunately I waited ~30 years to actually pursue coding as a profession, and figured Python (widely used in three *huge* opportunities in terms of demand, compensation, and even world impact): Machine Learning/Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, and Cyber Security. Sorry for my overly wordy history, but I think context is important when writing a review, as it may help the reader understand this person's state of mind and level of proficiency relative to the subject being reviewed. With the above in mind, and also keeping in mind I've done pretty much exactly zero coding since college some ~30 years ago here's what I think might be most useful for anyone that has suffered through my bloated introduction.

Overall the first thing that impressed me - similar to earlier modules - was how thoroughly the lectures cover the most relevant content that the student should focus on. I'm enrolled in a five part series/modules of courses under the Google Coursera "Learning to Code with Python" and just as in the previous modules once again the instructor/module was concise, informative, and I learned a LOT more than I was expecting to!

I will warn that for me - having never been exposed to SQL or SQLite (something I wish had happened much sooner after seeing/learning about it) - I was able to successfully complete the class, I do not feel in any way competent in using/applying that knowledge in a meaningful way. Without the program files as resources to tinker with, and copy and past into, I wouldn't be able to code from scratch what is taught in the class.

However, I don't think that's the intent so much. With respect to the use of Databases with Python, I possess a much better understanding at the foundational level of what's important, what's possible, how various elements from different programming languages as well as tools like the SQLite Browser can be used together inside the same Python program, etc.

Even better, (although I'll likely enroll in official certification path that will layout exactly what I need to learn and when), I know exactly what I need to study and understand next in order to start putting these skills to work at my current job - which has nothing to do with programming.... my job involves and I see everyone around me doing the same thing estimating, and moving information from one document to another, over and over and over and often times it is the exact same information! And - while I had hoped completing this program would enable me to build tools that will enable me to be more efficient at my current job, now I see that I can and will build tools that aren't only useful to me, but to the entire team of project managers/estimators/purchasing! Sure I'll have to practice a lot more with json and SQLite (maybe even SQL), but I understand the foundational structure, how to get started, where to focus my studies, etc.

I guess that's the long way of saying "Wow!" I had no idea I'd get so much out of this class, while recognizing that a basic understanding != (sorry, had to sneak SOME python into my review) "Proficiency." Still, this seems to me to be something similar to playing the piano or a musical instrument, only with a learning curve that isn't nearly as steep. In other words - I know what I know, I know what I need more practice/experience with in terms of different programming languages, I know enough about DB Architecture, or at least 90-95% of what I need to know in order to build a robust application that can support distributed users, and knowing this allows me to begin setting up my initial databases, learning how to automate inputs into them, and I could go on and on!

Even though I might sound like I'm nitpicking my 5-star review - I wouldn't have minded some additional practice with json and SQLite in particular - but even that's not exactly fair to say because I can see now why there are entire courses dedicated solely to those tools.

When this course was originally developed, at least 2 years, ago, it must have been a decent course for its intended audience, which,most likely, were people attending a live course.

Unfortunately, the course has some serious structural flaws that time and the online media have exacerbated.

First of all, the course was originally built around python 2 and had to be ported to python 3.

As a consequence, there are often reminders of how this or that thing was changed from a version to the next, which is just a waste of students' time.

The many videos about historical bits are entertaining but do not really add any value to the course, since they do not talk about the technology but just about what the creator was thinking when they came up with the idea.

As an example, the video about REST API, which nowadays is quite used, did not even explain what REST API is.

The concepts in the course are not disclosed in a well structured way because the student is not being provided many of the necessary details to understand the why, other than the how things are done. Although this makes sense in an course that is just meant to introduce the student to a subject, students are not taught how to find further information about missing details by themselves until course 4, which is simply too late, and it is also explained in a sloppy way.

During the whole course, I have seen the instructor typing actual code probably 3 or 4 times.

The instructor is there to show you that some code was written to do a certain job but he will not show you how he (?) put the code together and the reasoning behind his workflow.

This approach, which also makes heavy use of powerpoint slides, is a very old way of teaching concepts that has been proved wrong a long time ago and does not help students retaining information, for the simple reason that they are not engaged in the making of the code but are just asked to get to a specific solution by using the 90% completed code.

Quite often I found myself going on the python website, stackexchange or youtube to look for more detailed explanations about concepts that in this course are provided "as is" and have to be accepted per faith. Do not expect to learn how to use functions, classes or how to read the documentation just by learning from this course.

Another serious flaw is that the instructor does not bother to introduce the debugger/visualizer (which are extremely useful) nor how to effectively work with files.

Most of the exercises are on the Extremely easy side, with difficulty spikes caused by the foggy explanations during course 2 and 3. Course 4 is mostly a waste of time because you are basically using code already written for you and you just need to provide a database file that satisfies the search criteria.

Course 4 is totally obsolete now.

I have only finished this course because I paid for it but this course does not really teach you how to use python to work with databases, rather how to repeat a limited amount of actions to get specific results.

It is sufficient to say that the University of Michigan itself does not find the level of this course good enough. I have applied for the applied data science masters at the University of Michigan (got admitted), in the application process, you have to pass a python assignment unless you have taken their python course on Coursera. I wanted to apply with the (python for everybody specialization) but found out they only accept students who have taken (python 3 specialization) , turns out that Michigan has two introductory python courses in Coursera and they are both dedicated for beginners. They say that the level (python for everybody specialization) is not high enough for a beginner student applying for their own masters. I would understand if the python 3 specialization was somewhat advanced, but no it's an introductory level course dedicated to beginners in python.

The assignments are really a joke, what's up with copying a whole code and add two lines and then submitting it, I don't understand how is this achieving anything. Assignment 5 in this particular course is a shame really a shame, they ask you to add a line of plain text to a notepad file and then run an already written code without any modification, can anybody enlighten me on how is this learning to program? I assumed that the last assignment in the course should be a little challenging, building some code from the scratch maybe, but no it's just taking screenshots of the output for some code that somebody else has written, this is really a shame.

Yeah, I have learned a lot in this specialization is totally true that I learned a lot, but it's not the best you can get it is not even the best introductory specialization you can get from the University of Michigan.

Going in, I have been coding other languages and certainly using databases and SQL. I just haven't used Python to do so, until now. I thought I might be connecting to MySQL, PostgreSQL or some document style server but this course avoided installing anything or requiring an account on something like Firebase and just did NoSQL, a filesystem based simple DB solution. I actually enjoyed learning some of the quick and dirty usages that I entirely ignored for server solutions and appreciate it for data analytics a lot more now. I'm excited to see how far I can push my systems using it.

With my background I could handle what many people complain about, which is unexplained concepts that are suddenly thrust on you and then 90% written code you just need to fill in the blanks on. Although maybe they didn't go through the past 3 parts of the specialization where all of those concepts are well explained. I think Dr. Chuck was just starting to gallop by providing the, now, boiler plate code. Repetition has it's merits but you can do that just as well on your own time and you don't need to use the provided code. As long as you can read what the intended output needs to be, you're free to write code that produces the correct database structures and perform the calculations.

I gave one video the thumbs down for the first time because it, and the code given, were clearly Python 2. For example, geoload.py provided didn't run at all on python 3 requiring me to do what I've come to know and is explained in one video. You have the basics, you will ALWAYS be searching through your entire career for answers, so get used to it. Through some searching on what buffer() was in Python 2 and how some libraries changed like urllib, I was able to update the outdated code and make it work. I understand it's difficult to re-record everything but you could just insert a "By the way, this was Python 2 and is not updated, I challenge you to update it" rather than smashing into several unplanned obstacles.

Overall I learned quite a bit and I take away several items I'm energized to test with this knowledge.

I am in the process of completing the Python 5 course Specialization and I absolutely love these courses. Dr. Chuck and his team have put a tremendous amount of thought and technical planning into making this course something that you can accomplish remotely. I really appreciate how you can go back and re-watch the lectures, which is even better than a live one off in person lecture. I am older and have coded in other languages - R, SPlus, MatLab, C++ but am a firm believer of starting from scratch so going through the whole sequence. I have picked up so much knowledge at a reasonable price and in a manageable amount of time. I think Univ Michigan has undertaken a very heroic/noble quest to help vastly expand the knowledge people everywhere to keep pace with the technological demands of the 21st century.

Please be advised, similar to all programming languages and courses it takes a substantial amount of focus and effort to complete the programming assignments and pass the quizzes. To help you with this process there are vast online resources available that explain the precise details of every aspect of Python. During and after the lectures I spend a lot of time experimenting with code and researching methods, functions, etc. to help me figure out the assignments. Dr. Chuck has a huge repository of example code that is available for you to use and experiment with, adapt and research to help you along the way. One must devote a substantial amount of focus and time to achieve any academic goal. I have found myself up at 1AM experimenting with code snippets and it made me feel like an undergrad again...

One additional aspect of the course are all the interviews with important people across the IT world that have played pivotal roles in the development of computers and programming. For me, that has added a rich layer of contextual knowledge that has great expanded the scale and scope of my understanding of computer science and engineering has evolved since the beginning. You wouldn't get this in a live lecture...

All of this makes me wish I was 18 again and could go back and attend Univ Michigan in Data Science and CS.

This is described as a five week course, spending a couple hours each week. I found every week interesting and well organized EXCEPT for week 5. If this were a four week course and the fifth week material was deleted, I would give this a five star rating. However, the assignment in week 5 is incredibly confusing, requires what feels like a massive increase in complexity, and the instructions were confusing.

In the fifth week, the intent is to learn how to use google's API to search for locations and then visually map them out. However, since the instructions were created before Google made a major change to their API, which now requires a unique key, the assignment could no longer be completed as assigned. This required multiple work-arounds, which some mentors tried to address in the course discussion forum, but these discussions were very confusing and did not clearly identify how to solve the problem. The fifth week of this course needs to be remade, such as with new videos from the professor and/or SPECIFIC DETAILED INSTRUCTIONS showing how to achieve the desired results.

I was disappointed by this course (the fourth in this five course specialization) because I had thoroughly enjoyed all the previous courses from this professor. Until this issue is addressed, I do not recommend this course.

I've loved parts 1, 2 and (some of) 3 of this Python course, but this one falls flat. (Part 3 showed many signs of being dated).

The video tuition mostly covers database basics, with only a little time dedicated to Python's interaction with those databases.

While the course seemed to be described as including Python visualization techniques, in fact it just uses (supplied) JavaScript to add pins to a Google map. It doesn't cover any of the many visualization libraries that are used daily for business intelligence or Machine Learning.

The final exercise of the module was just appalling. "Add a single line of text (not code - just the name of a place you live near) to a file and run some code we give you, then have your screenshots marked by 3 other people on the course". No-one learns anything from this, no-one feels pride, a sense of achievement, and no-one has learned anything from this end-of-module assessment.

I think at this point the course material has become too old to continue being useful in the real world. While content has clearly been added or amended to reflect some developments in the past 5 years, it doesn't go far enough. Replacement of this course seems to be the best solution. Maybe a module that starts with pushing data into a database, moves through Python-based data cleansing techniques and finally uses a library or two to produce visualizations from that cleansed data.