Your grade in this class only depends on your final if you take it in Winter. I say this because the 3rd and 4th projects are not graded. I strongly think this is because Nachenberg creates crazy specs that Smallberg cannot make grading scripts for. Let me put this in perspective: I got 100 on the midterms, scored well above the median on the first and second projects, finished the 3rd and 4th projects FULLY (I think these would have been a lot higher than the median), and think I did ok on the final (I wouldn't know since we did not get the final exam score either), and ended up with a B+.

At the end of the quarter Smallberg said we would get our scores "soon": I am still waiting on them. My advice is to not spend too much time on project 3 and 4, but spend enough time on them that you get a median score, because chances are, they won't be graded anyways. I spent too much time on project 4 that I could not focus my time on the final, which ended being the part that mattered most.

In spring, project 3 and 4 were considerably easier, and tests were just fair. As long as you attend lectures, do all homework and projects rigorously, and review Nachenberg's slides, you should be doing well in this class. The textbook is not necessary, and you can always find one online, so don't waste money on getting a physical copy.

Smallberg can teach nowhere as well as Nachenberg, and it showed when students often just read off Nachenberg's slides during class. Smallberg can be quite confusing, and often spends large amount of time on unnecessary information. He may also come off as condescending at times and specs often seem too detailed and abstract. Concepts were not difficult themselves, but the projects were a ridiculous amount of time to make. The first 5-6 weeks are pretty smooth, but it goes downhill with project 3 and 4. The difficulty and time to make project 3 and 4 is overexaggerated though, as long as you pace yourself. I always started them the day I got them and did not pull a single all nighter and usually finished them about a day ahead of time. Midterms and final are of average difficulty. The TAs are quite subpar, however, and had trouble explaining concepts and seemed unclear about the project specs at times too.

Super tough class - I just got single-handedly burned inside and out towards the last few weeks. This class is known to be the weeder course for CS and it really shows, particularly towards the last 3-4 weeks. I thought the pace was okay for the first six weeks but things went downhill from there. The midterms are really tough and the final was tough. Don't know what grade I will get but it'll range from the C+ to B range hopefully.

He really should change his name to Slowberg though...
P.S. His lectures make a great hypnosis.

The projects were very very time consuming and helped you solidify your understanding of concepts, but they could get boring easily when you had to deal with the 50+ page long requirements and debug in an unintuitive interface (ie. terminal). Going to TA and club tutoring might help with the projects since Smallberg didn't discuss them that much in class.

Teaching wise, I enjoyed his lecture style. It had a very natural and understandable flow and pace to it that must be the result of his teaching the same class for 30+ years! On the other hand, it's quite easy to fall asleep listening to his monotone voice. I benefitted from attending Nachenberg's lectures occasionally just to see things from a different perspective. As a non-CS major, I found this class useful for really understanding the foundations of programming.

Professor Smallberg is an excellent professor. CS32 as a class is not very difficult, but the projects (specifically Projects 3 and 4) are VERY time-consuming. Start them early. Smallberg's lectures are BruinCasted, so if you miss a lecture or two you can stay caught up. Going to class is helpful if you have any project-related questions because he will answer any questions you may have, though he is also very responsive to emails, even at the weirdest times. Overall, I learned a ton in this class with Smallberg.

Prof. Smallberg is a great professor. He will explain everything in details with a lot of historical description of c and c++, but it your duty to catch them and write it down in your notes. Sophisticated problems are unlikely to appear in midterms and projects, but the final is full of traps, just like CS31. I took CS32 in spring quarter, so I have the chance to attend the lectures of Prof. Nachenberg occasionally, another famous prof who only teach in spring quarter. If Nachenberg is like Google and his class is full of interaction, Prof. Smallberg is like Apple, in that he explain questions full of authority in a positive way. I have to say that his specs in hw and projects are flawless. The class is full of contents, so it will end up with rushing in the ending 2 weeks.

This is a challenging programming class. From what I’ve observed, those who were at the top of the 31 Fall class typically transition well into 32 winter but those who were able to skate by in 31 fall usually get hit hard in 32 winter so take Smallberg’s advice about reviewing your C++ for a quarter and then returning in spring. Be prepared to place this class at the top of your priority list for the quarter you’re taking it in cause it is an unnatural time sink, particularly the later projects. You’ve probably heard this before but believe the hype- Projects 3 and 4 are very time consuming and challenging. If you really laboured with the projects and homeworks like you were expected to, the midterms should come fairly naturally to you. The final on the other hand is a very tricky exam and you have next to no time to prep for it as the difficult Project 4 is due 2 nights before and you practically have a day to recap a quarter’s worth of material. On the bright side, all exams are completely open book, open notes. So you don’t need to memorise stuff, you need to understand how things work and know how to apply them. Most of the learning takes place while doing the hard projects, so make sure to invest time into them to get as much out of it as possible. I don’t know if this class prepares you enough for interviews though, due to the quarter system, there certainly isn’t enough time to cover graphs and hash tables comprehensively enough towards the end. Would be ideal if UCLA made this a 2-quarter sequence but oh well. Difficult but a solid learning experience!

When I took this class, no one received anything about cheating. I think it's because in spring cheating is very prevalent.