Writing, Running, and Fixing Code in C (Coursera)

Offered by Duke University,
Writing, Running, and Fixing Code in C (Coursera)

Building on the course Programming Fundamentals, this course will teach you how to write code by first planning what your program should do—an important approach for novice and professional programmers. You will learn how to compile and run your program, and then how to test and debug it. This course builds on the Seven Steps you have already learned and provides a framework for systematically testing for problems and fixing them, so you can find and fix problems efficiently.

Class Deals by MOOC List - Click here and see Coursera's Active Discounts, Deals, and Promo Codes.

Course 2 of 4 in the Introduction to Programming in C Specialization.

Syllabus

WEEK 1
Writing Code
In this module, you will learn to write code and do your first assignment in the Practice Programming Environment. You have practiced the first four steps of the Seven Steps in the previous course, and you will review them here before learning Step 5: Translating Your Algorithm to Code. Expert programmers spend most of their time planning before they begin writing code, and you will learn to do the same!

WEEK 2
Compiling and Running
Now that you know how to plan an algorithm and translate it to code, you need to learn how to compile and run it! You will learn about the compiler, which takes the code you wrote and translates it into instructions a machine can execute, which you can then run. You will also learn about different options you can give the compiler, as well as different ways to run your program that give you debugging information.

WEEK 3
Testing and debugging
Two skills that are crucial to good programming are testing—finding problems with your code, and debugging—fixing them. In this module you will learn systematic ways to identify problems in your code, as well as how to apply the scientific method to fix your program when you do find a bug.

WEEK 4
Project
In this module you will begin the project you will complete over the course of the rest of the specialization. At the end of each course, you will write a piece of a program that will calculate the odds of different poker hands winning with a Monte Carlo simulation—a way to calculate complicated probabilities by generating random data.
Practice Programming Environment

Go to Class
MOOC List is learner-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Related Courses

An Introduction to Interactive Programming in Python (Part 1) (Coursera) Coursera
Rice University

An Introduction to Interactive Programming in Python (Part 1) (Coursera)

This two-part course is designed to help students with very little or no computing background learn the basics of building simple interactive applications. Our language of choice, Python, is an easy-to learn, high-level computer language that is used in many of the computational courses offered on Coursera. To make learning Python easy, we have developed a new browser-based programming environment that makes developing interactive applications in Python simple.

Oct 5th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Computer Science: Programming with a Purpose (Coursera) Coursera
Princeton University

Computer Science: Programming with a Purpose (Coursera)

The basis for education in the last millennium was “reading, writing, and arithmetic;” now it is reading, writing, and computing. Learning to program is an essential part of the education of every student, not just in the sciences and engineering, but in the arts, social sciences, and humanities, as well. Beyond direct applications, it is the first step in understanding the nature of computer science’s undeniable impact on the modern world.

Oct 5th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Functional Program Design in Scala (Scala 2 version) (Coursera) Coursera
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

Functional Program Design in Scala (Scala 2 version) (Coursera)

In this course you will learn how to apply the functional programming style in the design of larger Scala applications. You'll get to know important new functional programming concepts, from lazy evaluation to structuring your libraries using monads. We'll work on larger and more involved examples, from state space exploration to random testing to discrete circuit simulators. You’ll also learn some best practices on how to write good Scala code in the real world. Finally, you will learn how to leverage the ability of the compiler to infer values from types.

Oct 5th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Parallel programming (Scala 2 version) (Coursera) Coursera
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

Parallel programming (Scala 2 version) (Coursera)

With every smartphone and computer now boasting multiple processors, the use of functional ideas to facilitate parallel programming is becoming increasingly widespread. In this course, you'll learn the fundamentals of parallel programming, from task parallelism to data parallelism. In particular, you'll see how many familiar ideas from functional programming map perfectly to to the data parallel paradigm. We'll start the nuts and bolts how to effectively parallelize familiar collections operations, and we'll build up to parallel collections, a production-ready data parallel collections library available in the Scala standard library.

Oct 5th 2026
4 Weeks
Introducción a Java (Coursera) Coursera
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

Introducción a Java (Coursera)

Me llamo Elisa Viso y una de mis pasiones es la de programar y enseñar a programar. El lenguaje Java es uno de los que más me ha gustado en mis 45 años que llevo programando. Si bien te podrá parecer un poco complicado empezar a programar en Java, una vez que cubras los conceptos básicos verás qué rápido se avanza. Java, como todos los lenguajes de programación bien hechos, te dejan hacer cualquier cosa (algunas de ellas con más trabajo que en otros lenguajes y otras casi directamente de cómo piensas la solución al problema).

Oct 5th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Programming Languages, Part A (Coursera) Coursera
University of Washington

Programming Languages, Part A (Coursera)

This course is an introduction to the basic concepts of programming languages, with a strong emphasis on functional programming. The course uses the languages ML, Racket, and Ruby as vehicles for teaching the concepts, but the real intent is to teach enough about how any language “fits together” to make you more effective programming in any language -- and in learning new ones.

Oct 5th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Data Analytics for Lean Six Sigma (Coursera) Coursera
University of Amsterdam

Data Analytics for Lean Six Sigma (Coursera)

Welcome to this course on Data Analytics for Lean Six Sigma. In this course you will learn data analytics techniques that are typically useful within Lean Six Sigma improvement projects. At the end of this course you are able to analyse and interpret data gathered within such a project. You will be able to use Minitab to analyse the data. I will also briefly explain what Lean Six Sigma is.

Sep 28th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Introducción a la programación en Python I: Aprendiendo a programar con Python (Coursera) Coursera
Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

Introducción a la programación en Python I: Aprendiendo a programar con Python (Coursera)

Decía Steve Jobs que “todo el mundo debería aprender a programar un ordenador porque esto te ayuda a pensar”. Hoy en día la programación es una herramienta fundamental para el desarrollo de la tecnología moderna. Este curso te introduce en el mundo de la programación en el lenguaje Python.

Oct 5th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Programming Languages, Part B (Coursera) Coursera
University of Washington

Programming Languages, Part B (Coursera)

This course is an introduction to the basic concepts of programming languages, with a strong emphasis on functional programming. The course uses the languages ML, Racket, and Ruby as vehicles for teaching the concepts, but the real intent is to teach enough about how any language “fits together” to make you more effective programming in any language -- and in learning new ones. This course is neither particularly theoretical nor just about programming specifics -- it will give you a framework for understanding how to use language constructs effectively and how to design correct and elegant programs.

Sep 28th 2026
3 Weeks
IBM z/OS Rexx Programming (Coursera) Coursera
IBM

IBM z/OS Rexx Programming (Coursera)

This course is designed to teach you the basic skills required to write programs using the REXX language in z/OS. The course covers the TSO extensions to REXX and interaction with other environments such as the MVS console, running REXX in batch jobs, and compiling REXX. A total of 11 hands-on labs on an IBM Z server (via remote Skytap access) are part of this course.

Oct 5th 2026
5-12 Weeks