Smallberg is probably one of the smartest professors in the country. He knows every detail of C++ all the way through and can literally recite lines from the documentation. Taking CS32 with him gives a huge boost to any student because of the amount of detail and nuance that Smallberg approaches his class with. This class is hands down one of the most valuable experiences for any student in CS.

Favorite project: Super Peach Sisters, hands down. It's so fun doing an actual graphical CS project for a change.

A lot of these reviews don't tell you about how this class is. Truth is, Smallberg is an insanely intelligent dude. He knows C++ like it was one of his children(C++ is a Small berg). He sometimes takes a bit to build up the analogies(which can make it slightly monotonous at times and thus hard to concentrate) but when you pay 100% attention, you will realize that no one can explain a complex computing concept like he does. At the same time, this class workload is fucked up. Way too intense way too quickly. And projects, esp 3 and 4, are a massive time crunch. When taking this, take it with 12 units or if more, make sure the rest of your load is not too heavy coz you will have a hard time otherwise(don't be me. 16 stem units including this class and it got so bad that I had to late drop this class)

Smallberg is LOVE
Smallberg is LIFE
Trust me this is the greatest CS course ever
With beautiful project 3 and 4

Both Smallberg and Nachenberg are very good imo. Smallberg's lecture goes more in depth than Nachenberg's, but covers less topics/breadth. It's best if you supplement Smallberg's lectures with Nachenberg's slides.
In our class, we had a total of 5 homework assignments and 4 projects. Every week, we had to turn in 1 or 2 of these assignments. When there's both homework and project due, homework assignments will be shorter (about 3-5hrs), otherwise they take 10-20hrs. Projects take about the same time as homework assignments, but project 3 and 4 are much longer (they're not necessarily harder, just longer assignments).
There are 2 midterms and 1 final exam. In my opinion, exams are much trickier than assignments. Reviewing notes and looking over lecture slides will not be enough, you have to find practice problems for yourself. I did quite well on the homework and projects, but the exams slaughtered my GPA.

I enrolled in Carey's section for CS 32, but due to the course being online, I had access to Smallberg's lecture videos (that he prepared ahead of time). Smallberg presented the material extremely clearly and was especially thorough in his explanations of important C++ concepts. It's clear he knows C++ more than Carey, although both are phenomenal CS 32 professors. He includes some additional info about the history of C++ language features that I personally found interesting, although it is not tested on his exams. He is very nice when it comes to answering student questions and definitely not unapproachable like some of the previous reviews mentioned.

Grading for the class is painstakingly slow, although Smallberg is working hard to get scores out to students as soon as possible. I feel CS 32 projects, particularly the last two, take a ton of time to test thoroughly and it is pretty much impossible to design an automated grading script.

I really hope Smallberg's rating goes up! By the way, Carey has mentioned how hard Smallberg has worked. For project 4, he spent a ton of time designing skeleton code for Windows, Mac, and Linux machines and posted updates to the spec at literally 4 in the morning (and no, Smallberg did not set a timer for 4 in the morning!). While previous reviewers mentioned how slow the grading has been, I feel that the heavy workload of CS 32 makes grading assignments inevitably time consuming. As frustrated as I am with not knowing scores to the last two projects, both midterms, and the final, I am confident that Smallberg is working hard to get those scores back soon.

Edit: Smallberg's rating is now 4.0 for CS 32 :)

Edit (again): I got an A+ in CS 32!

Terrifying workload, and legendary Smallberg, writing this down when I am doing the homework with tears.

lit class

Attend Nachenberg. This guy is awful at answering questions. He once embarrassed me in front of the whole class for asking a question, telling me I'd know the answer to my question if I was there on Monday. Well, I was there on Monday, and walked away still not knowing the answer to my question. This man is no teacher

CS 32 is hard and demanding in general but Smallberg's explanations and lectures were pretty good and clear! He was also very accommodating due to the whole COVID-19 situation and our midterms and final made up a much lower percentage of our grade than they would in normal circumstances.