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Learner Reviews & Feedback for Java Programming: Solving Problems with Software by Duke University

4.6
stars
7,850 ratings

About the Course

Learn to code in Java and improve your programming and problem-solving skills. You will learn to design algorithms as well as develop and debug programs. Using custom open-source classes, you will write programs that access and transform images, websites, and other types of data. At the end of the course you will build a program that determines the popularity of different baby names in the US over time by analyzing comma separated value (CSV) files. After completing this course you will be able to: 1. Edit, compile, and run a Java program; 2. Use conditionals and loops in a Java program; 3. Use Java API documentation in writing programs. 4. Debug a Java program using the scientific method; 5. Write a Java method to solve a specific problem; 6. Develop a set of test cases as part of developing a program; 7. Create a class with multiple methods that work together to solve a problem; and 8. Use divide-and-conquer design techniques for a program that uses multiple methods....

Top reviews

FA

Oct 7, 2017

Excellent explanations and amount of course work for practice, the tests made good use of the examples and work given, I am satisfied with what I learned in this course and see it's real world usage.

AS

Dec 10, 2020

Excellent explanations and amount of course work for practice, the tests made good use of the examples and work given, I am satisfied with what I learned in this course and see it's real world usage.

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1551 - 1575 of 1,613 Reviews for Java Programming: Solving Problems with Software

By YJ L

Nov 20, 2022

Constant mistakes appear in the lecture especially reading materials. it can mislead the students.

for example:"As always, when you’re done writing your code in the getLargestSide method, remember to add the code to call the getLargestSide method in the testPerimeter method and add the code to have the system print the output (the same way we did in the last exercise). As always, this is a great time to compile and test your code, and if you run this code using example1.txt as your shape file, then the longest side should be 5.0."

I think answer is not 5. mentor please double check. PS I've found several mistakes in this class. It needs to be improved.

By Irene A

Oct 11, 2023

I came here with a understanding of Java, and left absolutely bewildered by what they wanted me to actually accomplish. The lectures were okay, but usually just went on about something, leaving out details to "discuss later" but then need you to know about them to finish the assignments. They have you use things that are from their website, use the horrible code editor of BlueJay when VSCode has far wider use, with far wider companies. And the assignments simply throw you into the deep end with little help or discussions. I would say if you are a beginner, look elsewhere for learning, if you know Java you can try, but don't expect much.

By Esau O

May 15, 2020

This is not a beginner's course and some questions are not easy as the staff rated, I think is a good course for intermediate people. To answer all the quizzes section you might investigate a lot. We got a life too! Many of us are not in school anymore we have a job and a family. My recommendation, please explain a little more the programming structures like CSVParses is a list or something? I never got it.

PD: The way you use tricky questions is not good to improve programming skills, please put hint at least i.e. " What is the number of boys' names in the file yob1905.csv?"

Regards.

By Deleted A

Jan 1, 2018

I Just can't understand why the instructors make simple concepts difficult to understand. Take the example of functions video, why you need nesting of function, calling function inside a function when you explaining function for the first time. for God sake this course required no programming knowledge. I learned programming (10 years ago) and yet i am feeling difficulty to understand your complex definition and explanation of a simple language concepts. i am doing this course for the sake of DUKE Certificate otherwise i give this course 1 Star.

By Viktoriia A

Nov 1, 2015

The course is just terrible.

It leaves an impression of being unfinished. There's a lot of knowledge missed out from lectures while being expected from the student in the quizzes.

Lecturers themselves have a very vague understanding of how java works and how to code in real life. What they say in some lectures is very misleading and gives either false or just insufficient understanding of certain mechanisms.

The examples are overcomplicated. They demand a full concentration on domain knowledge rather than on programming itself.

By Borsós A B

Jun 30, 2019

Bad organized, too many typos, errors, uncleared and illogic things in the Assignments. I am almost at the end, but now I really quitting this stuff. I liked the Programming C from the Duke, but this one is a total mess. There are no Instructors and Teaching Staff to talk to in the Forums, just some Mentors, but that is not a big help, this Course is total left alone from the Authors. Andy Hilton is a good guy, should read the discussions and correct the errors!

By Sophia S

May 9, 2021

I like the difficulty of this course, it's challenging. HOWEVER, the course materials have a lot of minor errors that cost you time to find the right files to use for your quiz, at least for Week 1. It also happened in the last class which was the HTML,CSS, and JAVA. It took me at least an hour to try to debug my codes but it turned out the reading guide wasn't consistent with the codes they provided, which caused the failure.

By Katrīna K

Jun 9, 2022

Beginning (course 1 in the Java specialization) was promissing but very fast the concepts became not understandable. Videos explain less and less but tasks become more and more complicated. In my opinion this course (and all Java specialization) is not ment for the beginners. This doesn't explain the most basic concepts a person that doesn't have IT background should start with.

By Konrad D

Jan 22, 2016

Does very little to actually help you learn JAVA. Explains nothing about why the language works as it does.. Also it insists on you using their libraries and programming environments. You spend perhaps 20% of your time actually practicing coding, and the rest is wasted in libraries you will never use again. Such a waste

By Bill Z

Apr 15, 2016

If you are a real beginner like me (having zero or little programming knowledge) and your time is limited, I think this course (or the specialisation) is not suitable for you. The assignments and quizzes are very time consuming. One week I spent literally 30+ hours writing and debugging codes for just one quiz.

By Cameron F

Aug 5, 2020

Some algorithms the instructors implement are very inefficient (searching through a whole string three times when what we want could be right at the start).

Also making their own simpler data types rather than just teaching the java built in data types seems like an odd choice. Learners want to learn java!

By Crystal H

Sep 25, 2017

Assignments are too advanced compared to the videos given. 7 minutes was spend showing how to code. However the entire final quiz on week 1 expects you to code new things that which were never shown in videos without any help. This was not the case in the 1st class in this series.

By Martina A S

Oct 9, 2020

There are to much requirements expeted to solve this course. It isn't for beginner, because there are no explanations about the basics.

You can learn the Seven-Step-Approach, but not how to translate the human language into Java. The first example is to complex for a beginner.

By Deep P

Jun 25, 2020

I think, it does have enough information and does not good explanation video quality also poor. Using BlueJ which I don't like because in the real world no one using BlueJ. I am looking for a deep learning concept which I could not find in this course!

By Алексей

Sep 16, 2018

Using custom libraries is very bad for students. We must study java core not some custom libraries.

BlueJ also a bad choise, even the notepad or the vim are better for understanding the compilation process. Also there is no peer reviewed assignments.

By Ankit G

Oct 20, 2015

Poor, very poor course, worse course structure. Instructor hasn't put any thoughts in how they should strucutre this course.Cover no basics, assumes lots of thing and term this course as beginner for Java where actually there is no Java taught.

By Amir M O

May 24, 2016

Poorly designed and explained. You do not really gain much knowledge from this course.

I would not recommend my friends and basically others to take this course. There are far better courses out there for much cheaper prices.

By Michael B

Dec 13, 2023

Programmed instruction course with no human contact whatever. Broken software? Missing files for assignments? There is no response to problem reports, and all the human customer support of Facebook.

By MD. S H S

May 8, 2020

This course is not a beginner course and can't understand what was the course motive to teach a student. For me, it was a total waste of time. Full of disappointment!!!

By Steven B

May 11, 2020

Complete lack of support from instructors. Questions were not clearly answered and only led to more confusion. Instructions for assignments contradictory to lessons.

By Hakan K

May 30, 2022

Good content but very poor support and platform!

If you are not familiar with Java or a programming language you will have very hard time. Not for beginners!

By John M C

Feb 16, 2020

Really poor job teaching java programming. I'm a beginner at coding at the teachers teaching this course are terrible. I don't want to take this course.

By Gargi K

Jan 29, 2020

The assignments could be a little more well suited to people from varying backgrounds.

The current assignments are a little difficult for beginners.

By Hamel H

Jan 3, 2016

Teaches you Java in a "toy" environment (Blue Jay) would be helpful to learn Java in Eclipse or another IDE that you would normally work in.

By François M

Jan 25, 2016

Use very specific environment that cannot be used in practice in the the Real World.

For a much better course, use UC San Diego versions.