Capstone MOOC for Android App Development

Good specialization completion project in general. Only found some of the weeks a little hard to complete.Enjoyed and learned a lot, also recapped concepts I do not work with on a daily basis.

Thank you to all Professors who are GREAT

Perfect course for overview and becomic basic android developer

Unpleasant end to a pretty nice experience with the rest of the specialization. I really have to question the reliance on 'peer reviews' in general - the discussion forums consist only of desperate students begging for someone to review their submission. Some people taking the course are cheating - taking submissions they're reviewed and passing them off as their own. The same cheating people will be reviewing your app - it's a mess.I also want to question the under-emphasis on ui and layouts in this specialization - there's almost no content covering the vast android specific libraries Google supplies for ui development. By the end of the course you will still be at a loss when creating and binding to ui elements.The concept of 'fragments', which is more of a paradigm than a ui element, is never even mentioned in the entire course.Another missed opportunity is covering gradle as a build tool. Coming to terms with gradle is an important part of android development, yet it's barely mentioned in the material. There is no explanation of what a 'task' is, how to update a project so it doesn't use an antiquated gradle version, or how to adapt a 'new project template' in android studio so it can be used for the course. The result is that all example projects are outdated and students are helpless in coping with any build issues.You will need a lot more experience outside this course to be a competent android developer and by the end you'll probably have mixed feelings about the quality and scope of the content.

After I completed the first 4 courses, Coursera tried to convince me I was ready for the capstone project. However, I wasn't well-prepared at all. I have to do a lot more studying on my own before I will be ready to make professional apps. A lot of the actual content is great. But simple multiple-choice quizzes and fill-in-the-blank programming assignments do NOT demonstrate adequate understanding of the material or teach it. I will go back through the lectures, take careful notes and especially, write my own app for every example app the instructor presents. It is only by writing code yourself that you really learn. There are so many things in my capstone project that I was really doing for the first time, and that should NOT be happening.

Content is ok, but scope not. First part of course is plain java
(for example looping backwards using c-style for constructs to
generate ascii graphics), 2 next parts partially low level internals
(well described async handling, yes, but no word of layouting, etc.
basics), then there is threory of security and testing without
assignments, and at the end one should know how to use many missing basics to make
complete app .. Capstone peer reviews are catastrophy: one should get 100% of points to
pass, which makes it very confusing, when requirements are like "over
50% test coverage" .. I don't recommend this course, but I admit
that material is excellent, and when authors of course would really see that they give student enough knowledge to pass capstone this could become good course.