I'm a programmer. I'm really enjoying CS 373 (Thrun's robots). I haven't done much Python but I haven't found anything too taxing.
The lectures are deceptively well-designed, with lots of (asynchronous) interaction. Try a course, you'll see what I mean.
The homework is a little more brain-stretching. It usually involves some code reading and intuition that was not served to you on a plate during the lecture. I have found them very valuable.
Often you are filling in some mostly-working code provided by the instructors. My only quibble is liberal use of globals, which violates some of my instincts about how their code works and causes me to spend more time hunting odd bugs than doing the actual content. On the bright side they usually provide some test harnesses so you're not dead in the water.
I've really enjoyed it so far. Signed up for Norvig and another one next time around.
One thing I forgot to mention. You can enter the course now and still get a good grade!
At least for CS 373, and I think for the other ones, they changed the grading scheme.
We have already had three homeworks due and are now on week 4. In the old scheme, you could drop one homework (out of seven). Homework was half the grade and the final the other half. So you could currently get a max of 66% on the homework.
They added a grading scheme that counts the final at 100%.
They will give you the better of your grade under the two schemes, to not disadvantage people who did well on the homework.
The lectures are deceptively well-designed, with lots of (asynchronous) interaction. Try a course, you'll see what I mean.
The homework is a little more brain-stretching. It usually involves some code reading and intuition that was not served to you on a plate during the lecture. I have found them very valuable.
Often you are filling in some mostly-working code provided by the instructors. My only quibble is liberal use of globals, which violates some of my instincts about how their code works and causes me to spend more time hunting odd bugs than doing the actual content. On the bright side they usually provide some test harnesses so you're not dead in the water.
I've really enjoyed it so far. Signed up for Norvig and another one next time around.