I take many classes with Eggert, and this class is particularly BAD! Eggert is known for hard class, so he is trying to make this class hard as well. Since the topic of the class is by nature easy, he chooses to torture students with unnecessary big amount of reading, random questions in quiz and ridiculous exams. Frankly I think he pretty enjoys keeping people busy, no matter it really helps students or not.

Like most of the courses Eggert teaches, the material is quite interesting and has a lot of potential for being really enjoyable. Unfortunately, the way its taught makes the course frustrating.

To start off, the lectures are engaging but are often irrelevant for the content that's going to be tested. If listening to a really great computer scientist talk endlessly about the history of CS and take countless tangents into obscure details (often unrelated to assignments) is your thing, Eggert's your guy. For example, there have been numerous times when Eggert STARTed lecturing on course content that would have been VERY useful to have while working on the project... the project that was due yesterday.

TAs in this class are your best friend. Find a good one, read homework specs before discussions, and ask the TA as many questions as you can. The homeworks are incredibly time-consuming and confusing. I feel like I was able to pick up the languages we worked on somewhat quickly but even so, I spent an average of ~15 hours working on each of the 6 homeworks (and one project).

To say a few good things about the course:
- Learning a diverse set of languages is really cool. You realize that the way the languages you initially learned (C, C++, Python, JS, etc.) take a lot of features for granted that don't necessarily need to be done that way.
- Once you understand how to do the homeworks and get a groove going, it can actually be kind of fun.

professor answers no questions. ta's answer few questions. students write poems on piazza crying regarding the workload. plenty of students skip the final because they already failed to turn one or two of 7 hw/projects. we cover way too much material and the work load will kill you. we had 2 projects due within 2 days of each other during 10th week. lecture is a complete waste of time. the book (although interesting) is useless for the tests/projects.
i seriously do not encourage you to take this professor. if you have to take this professor, be ready to guess your way through tests.

If you're reading this that means you're probably new to UCLA, or the CS department, because you're wondering how Eggert is. Either that, or you took him for 111 and are curious if he's different. Short answer - not really. No professor gives me as much internal conflict as Eggert. His exams are impossible, and his projects unbelievably time consuming and difficult to understand. However, as was the case when I took him for 111, when I walked out of the final I thought to myself, "damn, I learned a ton in that class." If you actually do the projects you'll learn a lot more than from most other CS classes, but you'll suffer mightily while it's happening. I'd analogize his class to the Navy SEAL training camp of UCLA CS. Tough love from daddy Eggert, but hell, he'll make you good.

READ THE TEXTBOOK BEFORE CLASSES!!! Go to Eggert' s office hours, which I found more helpful than his lectures. His projects and homework are doable, and you can still get a decent grade even if you submit one or two days after the deadline. It is also advisable to take CS35L BEFORE this class. The average scores of midterm 1 and 2 this quarter are 32% and 52% respectively, even though TAs are very generous in grading. The problems are mostly open ended, and legend has it that Eggert came up with his questions hours before exams. During his last office hour this quarter he said that he taught us his understanding of the class materials, while the textbook provides us with another perspective, and his exams test us both versions of "truth". I think that is why so many people found this class daunting.

Eggert is a pretty eccentric teacher, but for this class I felt like that was good. He did a pretty good job of teaching concepts of programming languages and getting you to question why things are the way they are, how different languages look like, etc. The homeworks can be tricky, but once you get a feel for the language and start to understand what's going on, the assignments usually only involve a few lines of code. Tests are basically a bunch of theoretical questions that you just have to work your way through, as I believe is typical for Eggert tests. If you like tests that are straightforward and just test you on your memorization of concepts, you probably won't like this, but personally because it's curved I was fine with it.

This is more an evaluation of the course rather than the professor, who I may mention did not respond to emails very well and did not interact with the class at all.

This course is a disgrace. For the amount of useful content this course aims to provide, I cannot believe teaching of the material and handling of the class was so poorly executed. It really is sad because these skills are actually really valuable if you are interested in working in industry.

I understand that TA's are given a fairly big responsibility in this class, but the presentations they made were not at all very useful. Furthermore, when my peers and I went for help on labs, we were at many times told to go and google what we needed help in. I understand that "this is the way the real world works", but I am certainly not paying over $3,000 worth of tuition every single quarter for this bs.

Specs are pretty shitty and LADEN with vagueness everywhere. They make Smallberg's specs look like godsends. Don't expect the TA's to clarify what you need - in many cases they will not be able to.

The grading is lazy and cryptic. The syllabus does not clarify how projects are graded, and I received grades for labs MANY WEEKS after I turned them in (the quarter has ended, and I only recently received my grade for lab 6/7). For a TA who is getting PAID to do this job, this is unacceptable service. It cannot take that long to grade labs, and the feedback is required when labs for one week require segments from labs for previous weeks (ex. lab 7 depended on lab 5, which a lot of people ended up failing).

I have to this day been unable to inquire about how labs are graded. Some (I speculate) are graded solely for correctness (no mention in the syllabus), others are graded for answers to questions (subjective, but one can only provide an answer accurate enough to what the vague spec asks), others are mix and match combinations, but above all, grading scheme is NEVER revealed. When projects are worth 50%, this is unacceptable. When I asked the TA's about how much a particular error will penalize me, I was told to never worry about it too much. Most labs ended up turning out well, but I ended up getting an F on lab 5 AFTER being told this same story - again absolutely unacceptable.

Averages are NEVER posted for projects or the final, so you have NO idea how you are doing relative to your peers. Did I also mention that your final has the potential to be exceptionally difficult depending on your TA? Example: Has anyone seen a for - else statement in Python before?

Overall, this is the WORST CLASS I have ever taken as a STUDENT - not just an undergrad. I truly expected better from the CS department for such valuable material, and it saddens me to know that this same issue will continue every single year.

He is a good lecturer. Even though some people think he is hard professor, I took him and it turned out it was not a true. I think the main reason that people think he is hard is because they don't read a textbook. The textbook is written by CMU faculties and it is a bible.
Also, the professor knows the stuff really well. He is one of the guys who participated in making LINUX EMAC function, which is gonna be a big part of the lecture, so hands down. And he is kind, if you ask a question, he is always there to answer you.
Read the book, and review the lecture, end of the story. You definitely learn a lot from this class, and I've got so many of the job interview problems that I would not have been able to solve if it were not for this class. GOOD CLASS OVERALL.

Prof. Eggert really knows what's going on here, and his experience will bring you a lot of insight. His CS33 is not that desperate. I am not good at CS and I am able to get an A. I'd say if you put enough effort in it, you could get a good one since the exams are hard but normally curved.

For CS33 projects, they are alright. And there is a kind late policy so handing in late for a day or two will not greatly affect your grades. Just pay more attention on correctness.

To prepare Eggert's tests, it is important to go to lectures and take down every point he mentioned. His tests cover EVERYTHING. Lecture notes are materials that you have to go through before the exams. If you have time, reading textbook surely helps if you are not an experienced CS student (like me). Problems in textbook does not help much, though. There is probably not sufficient time (for me) to finish everything on the exams, so my strategy is to make sure what I did is as "correct" as possible.

I must say TA helps me survive this quarter. Luckily I got Uen-Tao this quarter and he is the best TA I've ever had. His discussions and slides are really helpful to understand the materials. The reason for this is that he goes to lectures! So he knows what happens during class and will cover the subtle points professor mentioned by few words in his discussion so I believe you could find some clues for the exams on Uen-Tao's slides. Uen-Tao also shares his lecture notes which could be a very good supplement of yours. Take this TA if he will TA in the future.

So Eggert's CS33 is doable. You surely need to pay more efforts on it, but you will get great returns.

Jesus.. I am so glad that I don't have to deal with this bullshit anymore. Like others said, this class SO BROKEN. I got an excellent TA, Zhaowei Tan (the GOAT), but still struggled. The professor posted Assignment 9 late and made it due the same day as Assignment 10 which is brutal. One assignment is already extremely time-consuming and they make it TWO and Final on the next next day.
Final Exam - just like others said it is impossible.