alt Hacker NewsIs the MOOC the same as the actual MIT course though? I went through one of the old Grimson Guttag Intro to CS courses on MIT OCW years ago, with zero programming background I found it a very gentle on-ramp with all the basics explained.
I think it was this one, unfortunately archived now. I don't know the new one
https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/6-00-introduction-to-computer-sc...
No idea how similar it was to what's taught in the classroom. Of course you have access to TAs and other students IRL. And I have no doubt that assumptions about prior exposure and skills have changed over time.
I can only report that, had you dumped me into that content with those assignments, with no prior background I'd probably have been dropping that class.
The online version was more Grimson on the algorithms and Guttag (who wrote the Python book) on a bit of the programming. But the emphasis was more on the algorithms.