Follow what all of the other reviews have said. Please spare yourself your mental health and do not take this professor for this class. For every course I’ve taken during my two years at UCLA, I’ve felt like it was possible to get an A if you worked hard, studied, and mastered the material. Not this one.
It feels like you are pretty much left on your own for this course. Very little guidance, and the assignments and exams are often vague and feel more like an assessment of whether you’re on the same wavelength as the professor. If you don’t understand a question, expect to get a 0 from the autograder. From this standpoint, the assignments often felt like a coinflip. The professor also came off as pretty rude on Piazza when people just wanted clarification on assignments.

This has got to be the worst professor I've ever had. Just like many of you reading this review, when I was picking professors I thought to myself, "Hey, it can't be that bad, I'll be able to survive". Absolutely not. I will admit that his tests really aren't that hard, I was consistently scoring 90%+, but guess what, he just isn't respectful at all. Although, I will guarantee you this: on the test, he gives you almost no time. The questions are doable given a 2-3hour time period, but he gives you damn near 1 hour to solve ~20 subproblems. This is quite literally impossible for anyone, and without the curve, I would've been scoring F's. Degrading his students on Piazza, implying to his students that they are illiterate and that "they don't understand english", he is not suited to be a professor. His design assignments in my opinion are quite fun, but as a usual CS class, he doesn't provide any partial. However, fun doesn't mean good. His design assignments are so badly worded and when you ask him to clarify on Piazza, he almost as if hits you with a "You don't understand english huh?". When asking TA's about his intention behind some points in the Design Assignment, they literally didn't know either, and accepted that Mani is a trash professor. EVEN HIS TA'S AGREE HE IS TERRIBLE. Design assignments also take a long time and are extremely specific. It's almost as if he doesn't want you to learn the material realistically, but rather wants you to do something in an extremely outdated method. He's better off sticking as a researcher rather than professor. He hasn't been taught etiquette and acts idiotically from the 1700s. I sometimes wonder how he became a professor given his lack of respect towards others and ignorance towards them. He acts almost as if he is a god and we should be worshipping him. Other than that, don't even go to his lectures, I have no idea how anyone learns from them. If it were me, I would say design the things he talks about in Logism yourself. That way, you really understand what is going on, especially since he loves to overcomplicate things.

The professor had to teach in pretty difficult circumstances so I think a lot of the criticism given might be unwarranted.

The class was tough. The homework were challenging. The exams were online and were very difficult.

I really liked the design assignments and wished there were more of them, However, the professor decided to give a final this year instead of a take home design assignment.

If there was one thing I think I would change about this class is I would've preferred a design assignment over a final. I think it would've been a more meaningful challenge and I would've probably had a deeper appreciation of some of the design patterns and algorithms discussed in class.

Overall this class is not for the faint of heart. All of the averages on exams were consistently below 50%.

Worst teacher imaginable. His lectures were two hours long twice a week and paying attention was the impossible. The content for the first 6 weeks were light but Mani somehow made it confusing. The content at the end of the quarter was significantly harder and Mani did not do any better at teaching. Discussion assignments are free, problem sets are manageable, design assignments are tedious, and quizzes and finals are terrible. They are rushed and designed to do poorly on. Mani is a rude teacher who responds to student questions in demeaning ways rather than being helpful. He is never wrong so its your fault for having bad reading comprehension skills.