Using Databases with Python

TL;dr. Another disappointed course in the specialization. Old-fashioned teaching style, poor material, useless assignments and too much filled material. Find another course to learn the basics of Python if you can.

First things first: if you want to learn about how to use Python, how it interacts with databases and how to write code to build a database, this course is not for you as it only shows code previously written with little to non existent opportunities to practice your coding skills. It's a course about databases and SQLite with a few Python programs already built.

With that being said, the course has the same structure of the courses 1-3 and this is its first flaw. Repeated videos and content in the first week and then lectures, assignments and filler videos who want to be interesting but most of them don't add valuable knowledge.

The lectures are all provided in videos, with intensive use of slides, which I honestly consider a poor and old-fashioned approach to teaching a subject, especially one as practical as programming. It's evident at times that the instructor has repeated himself so many times that he rushes from one slide to another without properly explaining important concepts.

About the concepts, like courses 2 and specially 3, this one repeats the "don't worry about it, just type this code we provide you and if it works, it will be fine, you don't need to understand" approach. Again, I believe this is not the best approach to teach programming languages, especially if you're a beginner.

The assignments difficulty range from medium-easy to joke. The first few weeks they can be resumed in something like "take the same code we've explained in a previous video, modify or add two lines and then submit it". I don't see how I could improve my programming skills by doing this.
Special mention to the fifth week assignment. When I see the word "visualization" in the title I thought about grab some public data from the internet, put in into a database and then use Python to make some charts, diagrams or whatever. It would have been great...instead we're provided with two different programs, a JavaScript file ¿? and an HTML and told that we add a new line into a file, run the programs without any modification and provide a screenshot to complete the assignment. Again, I don't know how doing this would increase my programming skills and also, although I'm only a beginner, I think Python is capable of doing much more in data visualization.

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.

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.

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.

"Using Databases with Python" is a well-structured course that teaches the fundamentals of working with relational databases using Python. Dr. Charles Severance once again delivers a clear and engaging learning experience, making the often complex topic of databases accessible to Python learners. This course is perfect for those who want to integrate database management into their Python projects.

What I liked:
Introduction to SQL: The course provides a solid introduction to SQL (Structured Query Language), allowing learners to interact with databases using Python. Dr. Chuck explains SQL queries clearly and ties them well with Python code.
Hands-on practice with SQLite: The use of SQLite makes it easy to experiment with databases locally without needing external setups. This allows for immediate practical application of the concepts being taught.
Real-world scenarios: The course presents real-world examples, like retrieving and storing data in databases, making the concepts easy to relate to and highly practical for future projects.
Step-by-step explanation: Each step, from database creation to executing SQL queries within Python, is broken down in a straightforward way. The accompanying assignments reinforce key concepts and provide a great way to practice database manipulation.

Overall:
"Using Databases with Python" is a highly recommended course for anyone interested in learning how to store, retrieve, and manipulate data using Python and SQL. It provides a strong foundation for database programming, with plenty of hands-on opportunities to apply what you've learned.

Good foundational base for working with SQL in Python. You aren't going to exit this course as a database administrator-designer-superwiz, but you'll get your feet wet enough to make basic programs and go deeper into SQL -- if you so desire. Like getting a glimpse into (yet another!) world full of possibilities...

As mentioned before, in my previous reviews: these are *very* introductory courses; as Dr. Chuck mentioned back in the very first one, all Python For Everybody courses are a little stepping stone, like the most basic "use the D-Pad to move" tutorial level in a videogame. And, like in videogames, if you have more than a passing knowledge, it might not seem so useful (or even annoying).

Those of us whose SQL knowledge begins and ends with "it's a thing that exists" (or not even that!) are the ones who most benefit. Though, as it builds up from the previous Py4E courses, Dr. Chuck's not handholding so much anymore, so remember to do your own research and read the Python docs on your own time :-]

If I may add something abt this course that I feel could be improved is that, a bit like the previous one on XML and JSON etc., is that... I'unno (and it depends how you approach it), but it feels like rather than learning so much "from scratch" you're much more dependent on the code samples; in fact, quite a few exercises feel like little more than "take Dr. Chuck's code and just modify a minimum". Then again, it might just be the nature of the beast.
But, for example, rather than having us do an exercise using the exact same data, and tables, etc. as the lectures and the sample code (music tracks, album, etc.), maybe an exercise where we would've had to come up with our own data modeling.
Then again, the autograder (for SQL, mostly) apparently uses rather specific commands where the variables (or tuples, or rows and columns, etc.) are dependent on being named in very specific ways, so maybe it's just not feasible.

Or maybe it's a sign that I'm outgrowing these courses a bit! That's exciting in its own way.

Still a deeply useful course, imho :-)

(P.S: if you read my review on the networking course, where I mentioned that we didn't get explained the bit of code in various of Dr. Chuck's samples abt ignoring certificate errors... He explains it briefly in one of his code walkthroughs here. Better late than never? Just found it amusing, that's all.)

I really enjoy the course as well all other 4 courses from the Python for Everybody Specialization from University of Michigan and Dr. Charles Severance.

I did tried numerous times to learn Python till I found this course, and this is the ONE!!

If you really want to learn coding, the fundament. essential basics you need so you actually start to understand all of the rest that is out there and try to teach you Python, this is the course.

Under the expert lead of Dr. Charles Severance, the course present the much complicated and difficult to understand in a first sight coding in Python in a language that is so simple and easy to understand, that you not only learn how to start to code in Python, you also build a fundamendal understanding for coding and learn also not only Python, but SQL, and how to logically find solution for your problem at hand.

It is GREAT COURSE, GREAT PROFESSOR, Wish more were like him!