Anyone who had the unfortunate opportunity to take CS 33 with Eggert will find that CS 131 with him is easier.

But not that easy.

This class crams a ton of programming languages into 10 weeks and expects you to learn them as if you only had this one class for the quarter. Be prepared to slam your head against the wall while doing Homework 2 (the hardest one by far) and spend a lot of hours dissecting the textbook (it's helpful, but dense) to actually learn the material.

For lectures, Eggert invites you to his two-hour TedTalks twice a week. He's a great lecturer if you just wanted to sit in on his history lessons and hear his opinions on language semantics or something. But if you actually want to learn to pass the class, please go to your TAs.

Assignments take forever, but Eggert has that incredibly generous late policy, so make sure to take advantage of it. TAs are a godsend in this class (shoutout to Patricia for spending a whole night writing test scripts for the Python project during Thanksgiving break! <3). Anyways, go to office hours and ask questions on Piazza. Your grade depends on it if you aren't a natural CS whiz.

Exams are hard. Seriously, the average for the midterm was like 45%. And the final will probably be in that range too. There's no way to truly study for Eggert exams. But it's an even playing field because almost everyone is just as confused! Eggert knows people are always lost in his class. He grades on knowledge, but he rewards INTUITION. No matter how wrong your answer may be, if you can back it up with any kind of evidence, you will get partial points. Pro-tip: Eggert's favorite questions in this class are language implementations and optimization languages. Is X language better than Y language for Z task? Is it feasible to implement X's function in Y to do Z?

Lastly, do yourself a favor and do NOT take this class with CS 111. You will die. Literally. I took this course in a four-class quarter and it was not fun to say the least. But everything will be all right. Getting through Eggert is like a rite of passage. You can't call yourself a true CS major without getting Egged after all.

This class was a complete mess in Winter 2021. There was only one TA who seemed to care- thank you Boyan Ding.

The workload was so high that the TAs could not keep up with grading and gave arbitrary scores to everyone on HW5 and HW6. For example, I turned in HW5 6 days late (-32 penalty) but got a 100.

If Eggert cares about most of the students learning, rather than only the top 5 or 10% of the class learning, he should make the workload lighter by removing a HW or two, or at the very least simplifying HW2 and HW5.

WORST OF ALL TIME

I'm prepared for heavy assignments and difficult tests on things he barely lectured in class. However, what I want to tell people right now is his unreasonable, mysterious curve and final grading strategy. The final grading is messy, with some people curved down but some not, just because he thought we would take benefits from generous graders in assignments. He didn't even tell which portion of the class was curved down and how, nor did he seem to consider that some answers might just be good enough to receive a full grade from any grader. It has NO transparency at all. You never know if you would be mysteriously curved down at the deadline of final grade submission day, and you can do nothing about it (since he will also not expose how he did it). I got full grades for every assignment, but if I knew those grades does not reflect anything, I would consider P/NP instead of getting this shitty grade that ruins my GPA (never got a B before).

In a nutshell, he is not the type of professor we usually met that gives you a hard time during the quarter but curve up at the end to make students learn. He is the devil that gives people a hard time till the moment you get your final grade. I don't know how curving down without clear explanation benefits learning, and he might not care.

Shout out to Ian Sommervill. Congratulations for writing the most boring textbook I've read in my life.

I'm hesitant to post a review for this class because you really don't have a choice on who to take it with since Eggert is the only professor that has taught it in recent memory.

130 is kind of a crappy class. Not at all difficult, just crappy. Tons of assigned reading and quizzes every class. Eventually you learn to ignore the readings and just fake it on the quizzes since they aren't worth much of your grade. The project is worth 40% of your grade, and with our client it was pretty easy (definitely doable in a hackathon context, so not overly time consuming considering you have 5-7 people on the team). The Midterm and Final are open book and open notes, but if you take notes on this class you will probably want to kill yourself, and you are already ignoring the reading assignments, so your best bet is to get someone to make a copy of their class notes for you and borrow some poor sucker's copy of the books (or use your free/cheap printing to print the PDFs that are easy to find with a google search).

At the first lecture the class is billed as one of the most useful classes you will take. I'll let you decide for yourself, but I don't believe it.

If you have to take this class, buckle up because, in my 2 years here, it has given me the most workload of any class by far.
Eggert himself is pretty friendly and a super engaging lecturer. His lectures sound like TED talks, and I never found myself dozing off in his class. He is very intelligent, and I respect him as a software engineer. You will need to show up to lectures to do well on the exams because, for certain questions, he might allude to random points he makes during lectures.
Speaking of the exams, they are notoriously difficult and there's not much you can do to study for them. The exams are conceptual and expect you to have mastered the material. Most people end up printing the entirety of their notes, myself included, which can help for 1 or 2 questions. The best way to study is to go over previous exams and the LA practice exams.
Another major part of the class is the homework/labs. Eggert's late policy is very generous, but my advice is to only use it when you need to and just start the assignments early. You'll need the time. Google is your best friend here.
You also have a final project where you create a full-stack web app, usually in a group of 5. If this is starting to sound like a lot of work, that's because it is. In my opinion, this is the most rewarding part of the class, but I encourage you to meet people early in the class and group up with people you trust. I made the mistake of grouping with randos, and maybe I'm just unlucky but none of them wrote a single line of code. So I spent every day from Friday Week 8 to Wednesday Week 10 working on this damn project.
Similar to other reviews, I was disappointed with the lack of transparency and the obscene delays in grading. One of our assignments was due Week 4-5 but was returned a few days before grades were due. It took a toll on my mental health stressing over these grades, and looking back I should have just accepted that I get what I get. I don't understand how the curve works, but I'm pretty sure he goes for a B/B- average.
Overall, you will learn a lot, but know what you're getting yourself into.

I wrote the following when people asked me for my opinion on CS 97 vs 35L. So this may not be a pure review per se but more like a comparison with 35L.

Disclaimer: I am someone who came into UCLA with a healthy amount of programming experience in C/C++ and some experience working with the Linux/Unix terminal. That said I had little to no experience with high-level scripting languages like Python or building web apps using JavaScript/node etc. I took CS 97 as an online class during Spring 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic so can say more about that but I will try to compare it with 35L as best I can. I may have missed some (or many) points here. Consult academic counselors/other students for more opinions.

First, some similarities between the classes and some advice for them:

1. Eggert is in charge. He writes the assignments and exams. Exams are typical Eggert exams - brutal with low averages. More on this later.
2. They are intended to teach you practical skills for software development - comfort with the Linux terminal, version control (git), scripting, etc.
3. TAs/LAs are your saviors. All of them were AMAZING this quarter. It is in your best interest to seek their help as soon and as often as possible.
4. There is the generous late policy of 2^(n-1) points deducted for n days late (iirc)
5. Exams are open book, open note and if taking online, open computer.
6. You are largely on your own for learning stuff outside the syllabus which, bear in mind, WILL be required for assignments/projects(CS 97) - this is a radical departure from CS 31-33 where you are taught everything and guided almost entirely (if you need it) for all assignments/homework. Not here - time to wake up and smell the coffee. These classes will significantly improve your ability to learn independently. Google and Linux man pages are your best friends.

Here are the MINOR differences between the 2 classes:

1. 35L is a 3 unit course, 97 is a 4 unit course (you must take it for 4 units if you want to apply credit towards 35L)
2. 35L is requires 4 hours of lab every week, 97 is a full course requiring 6 hours per week - 4 hours of lecture + 2 hours of discussion (the 2 extra hours may be a major difference for some people)

Here are the MAJOR differences:

Grading: 35L has 10 programming/homework assignments each weighted 5% (total 50%) and a final exam worth 50%.
97 has 4 programming/homework assignments which count for 5% total, 2 midterms worth 10% each, a final worth 23% and a project worth 50%. The remaining grade is made up of stuff like LA feedback surveys, class evaluation, etc.

Lectures: 35L is entirely TA-led. For 97, Eggert delivers 4 hours of lecture every week on various topics. More on this below.

Project: 97 has a project requirement (the name of the course is Software Construction Projects) whereas 35L does not . This project is half of your course grade and a major reason this class was introduced in the first place. We had to make something with a client-server architecture and almost everyone opted to build web/mobile apps with node/React. There were groups of 2,3,4 and even 5 people.

Now I will share my opinion on CS 97:

*Pros:*

Lectures: Gotta give credit where credit is due. Eggert is a LEGEND. As a lecturer, he is simply brilliant. Lectures mostly cover shell commands, file systems, Emacs, git, Python, client-server theory, C programming and debugging, etc. along with the history and philosophy of how these techniques came into play. Keep in mind I am someone who is usually irregular with attending lectures but I made it a point to watch and absorb every Eggert lecture and felt it was worth it. In my opinion, this is a major advantage of 97 over 35L which is known to be a broken class for lacking a teaching component like this.

Project: Even though I did not enjoy it too much personally, I’m sure I’m an exception here. The project experience was a huge plus for most people. A lot of people made a lot of awesome stuff. A good learning experience on how to build a large piece of software (much larger than CS 32 Project 3), web development, collaboration with team members, using git/GitHub and solving problems. Also, it’s relatively straightforward to score points so you can secure 50% of your grade if you don’t mess up simple instructions. You also get something to put on your resumé.

Assignments are worth less: I think 3 of the 4 assignments we had were also in 35L and these assignments can be hard. Fortunately, they aren’t worth much in 97 so you need not stress over them. Caveat: a good chunk (say around 30%) of exam questions were rooted in the assignments. So doing them can help you after all. But knowing how to do them may be sufficient for exams instead of stressing over meeting a deadline.

Variety of topics covered: The assignments and project requirements introduce you to a wider variety of material than 35L. Last time I checked, topics like client-server theory, JavaScript, HTML/CSS, React are not covered in 35L but I may be wrong.

*Cons:*

Exams: 97 has two more exams than 35L. Eggert exams are some of the most stressful ones in our CS curriculum. The exams are based largely on the lectures and assignments so you can sort of prepare for them and in an online quarter, the exams are open computer but a midterm is a midterm and I’d rather not have one than have one. But then these exams are what allow them to weigh the assignments at only 5%; also, if you somehow manage to do well (read: better than most other people) on them, you’re almost guaranteed an A since most people get identical grades for the other components. So I guess with exams, it goes both ways. I also feel the exams were fair - they related to the lectures/assignments and covered the objective of the course as a whole.

Assignments: The lectures DO NOT help with the assignments. We covered topics needed for assignments in lecture after the assignment was due. Assignments can put you in a tricky situation. They are medium-long time consuming and worth 0.75% or 1% max. So you may decide to skip them but then the thought of losing those points may linger in your head. Also, as mentioned above, doing the assignments is helpful for exams, so spending those hours may be worth it. YMMV.

Preparation for Upper Divs: I am only speaking from my experience of taking CS 111 so far, this may not be true. Almost all of 35L’s assignments are text editors, Python, C programming, scripting and debugging. This is not the case with CS 97 which covers those topics but not at the same level of depth. Problem is, mastering these techniques is essential for success in upper divs. For example, I struggled much more with Project 0 of CS 111 than I would have had I taken 35L. This point is open to discussion though, someone with more upper div experience could comment better.

Workload: Looking at the course websites, the workload for CS 97 seems heavier than 35L but since I haven’t taken 35L, I cannot comment on this accurately.

TL;DR / Overall Verdict:
Go for CS 97 if you like awesome lectures on CS and really want the project experience. The lectures and project will most likely serve you well in the long run. Also, if you are good at taking exams and have good intuition for things, it might be easier for you to get an A since you can use your intuition to convince the graders.
On the other hand, take CS 35L if you are someone who loves C programming, the Linux terminal, systems programming and someone who lives and dies by the command line. It will prepare you better for upper division classes (CS 111 at least) and help you master command-line tools better.
If I could go back and make a choice again, I would pick 35L since I fall in the latter category and didn’t enjoy web development a lot. I liked CS 97 though, it wasn’t boring or bad in any sense and I ended up learning a lot. But that is just a personal take. Hope this helps.

Haven't gotten grades yet but this class was just awful.

I suspect that this course was designed to make people who aren't 100% invested in cs quit the major. Just get this course over with ASAP.

The popular opinion for this course is that the projects are way too hard and take way too long. For most people, that does carry quite a bit of truth. However, just saying that would make this review sound exactly like the ten preceding this one, so I'll try to do better.

I would qualify the difficulty in the projects, as not that they themselves are difficult, but rather they require quite a lot of knowledge and maturity in programming in C – something that the previous Computer Science classes do not prepare the students well for. Having done the projects myself and helped numerous others, I'd say the two major pillars that people were not as prepared for were:

- reading documentation (“man pages”): ability to skip the boilerplate and get to what you are actually looking for; finding and adapting example code

- understanding and applying memory allocation: fixed-size arrays vs. malloc(); pointers, lifetime, and ownership. Most people understand what they are and how they are different, but applying that knowledge correctly could be a different challenge.

If you are or become comfortable with these things, the projects will be quite doable.

On the other hand, the exams had a different focus. I hate to use the overused word, but they force you to think critically and provide a reasoned answer backed up with facts and experience. For dreamers and debaters, it was heaven. For the rest of us, it was a first taste at what software engineering is all about: a whole lotta dreaming and debating. (Oh, feel free to replace “dream” with “BS.”)

But where do you get the facts and the experience? The former you get by following textbook readings, which are unfortunately very heavy, as well as by listening and processing Professor Eggert's excellent lectures. The latter you get by stumbling and reflecting while doing the projects.

Of course, many online resources exist for help in the projects. However, a word of caution if you do decide to go down that route: most folks on GitHub who post their solutions were just as clueless as you are when they did it. Thus there is great variance in the the quality of said resources.

But if you do end up finding resources of high quality, make sure to maximize your learning by carefully reading and understanding why they did something but not something else: because there’s an actual reason, or because they just felt like it? How did they think of something that you didn't? Reflect, and you’d become a much better Computer Scientist or Software Engineer for it.

Probably said too much already, so I'll stop. In any case, good luck, and hope you enjoy the class!