Smallberg is a human compiler. He might be a little slow at the start especially if you have previous coding experience, so really start paying attention around pointers (week 6 ish). Nobody on the planet is better for making you understand fundamental CS material. Although his lectures might be slightly dry, he's the absolute GOAT and someone you'll definitely appreciate for improving your understanding of coding. Also be careful as fuck with the projects as even a typo could anal your grade.

Smallberg is a GREAT Professor. I came into this class with little knowledge about C++ or any computer programming and he really takes you through everything, at a good pace, while making sure to give examples for ever scenario that could possibly happen, or ever error he sees people make. If you’re taking CS31, and you’re not comfortable with the material already, Smallberg is the best professor you could ask for.

smallberg is my boy. dont listen to the review below me, he must be dumb.

Professor Smallberg is an excellent professor! He answered student questions in class during the breaks and in office hours. His specs can be unclear, but TAs will usually help clear it up.

Throughout the quarter I was kind of disappointed with the professor because in his emails and homework assignments he liked to use very disrespectful tones, calling students stupid etc. So I was extremely surprised to find out I got an A even from all the below-average project scores.
I was completely new to programming at the beginning and I am not an engineering student. Smallberg warned that students like me should drop the class and waste our money on CS30 because it would be extremely hard to pass. Well, now I have to disagree on that, and I am just a below-average linguistics person and received little help from discussion sections and had no study groups.
What I'm saying is that don't get intimidated by the comments. If you work hard you'll do great.

I am sitting in his class right now and I am very bored

Advice to anyone who takes this class and feels in over their head: don't give up! I took this class Spring quarter, so most of the people in the course were not too familiar with programming and were in a similar boat as me. Despite this, I still consistently scored below average on the homeworks because my code would always be sloppy and face issues no matter how much time I put into it. Eventually, I did alright on the midterm and final and passed the course despite the writing on the wall that I was behind the rest of the class. Everyone learns these things differently and though you may be tempted to drop or look at someone else's code, DON'T! Give yourself PLENTY of time to complete the assignments because 90% of the process WILL BE making mistakes, fixing them, and learning. That is the point! If you don't make these errors then you won't learn! Beating yourself up for not being fluent in code is like beating yourself up for not being a violin prodigy: some people, including your peers, will be masters at the material, but it's up to YOU to figure out how much learning is needed to be comfortable with C++.

I came into this class after high school, got a 3 on my AP Computer Science class. Got a C on the first midterm. After sitting in the front row of the class for the rest of the quarter, I realized how great of a professor Smallberg is. His lectures are boring, but if you can manage to pay attention the entire time, you will have a great understanding of the concepts.
Highly recommend starting early on the projects and going to office hours (B2432).

Smallberg tries his best to be a good lecturer, but his lectures are pretty boring and he uses the same monotone voice the entire 2 hours. Luckily, the content of CS31 isn't too difficult and can be self-taught. This class mostly focuses on learning basic C++ syntax, strings, arrays, and pointers. It's the bread and butter behind C++ and you should absolutely do your best to learn the material thoroughly, even though Smallberg isn't a very engaging professor.

Smallberg's exams are a time crunch in CS31; you'll struggle to finish on time, and may leave out one or two problems to maximize the chances of getting the others correct. His CS31 exams are syntax-heavy. His practice exams are in the same format as his exams and are very useful, so make sure to do them beforehand.

Smallberg's project specs are EXTREMELY clear! You will know exactly what he expects out of your projects, which you will look back on fondly after future classes with unclear specs (mostly Eggert). Smallberg's projects are fairly graded, and the averages on them are usually above 90%.

Overall, Smallberg is a pretty fair professor of average teaching quality. I felt that I pretty much got out of the class what I had put in, which is reasonable.

They changed the way they teach this class this year, so they expected you to have prior programming experience before taking the class (they wanted you to have written a program that used an array and a program that called a function that you wrote). Up to this point, I was an entirely self-taught programmer, as I had never taken a formal computer science class, and I feel that I was just fine in keeping up with the material. The only reason I got a B+ instead of an A or A- was that I did poorly on the third project, because I wasn't able to get one of the main features of the program working properly. Most of the projects are not hard, but projects 3 and 5 are particularly time consuming. Also, make sure to read the specs multiple times, because there are details you might miss the first time around. The midterms are not difficult in terms of content, but you can easily lose lots of points by making silly mistakes, so be very meticulous. The final was more difficult, but still doable. Ultimately, there isn't much of a curve, the grade is essentially based off of raw score. A word of warning, though, cheating on the projects is definitely not worth it. The whole class received an email about how the professor and TAs caught a large number of people cheating, and they would be submitting those cases to the dean. Apparently, they have software that can do a forensic examination of source code that can detect similarities in code, even with different spacing, function orders, variable names, etc. Overall, I really enjoyed this class and am looking forward to CS 32.

P.S. Don't forget the semicolon!!!