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.

Class is difficult and takes up more time than any previous class but is somewhat manageable. Class is graded on a curve and the average grade is around a B+ (maybe B or A-). This class teaches you a lot and gets you up to speed with actual software development.

To anyone confused about previous years' reviews, CS35L used to have lectures given by TAs instead of Eggert and more homeworks, and was much more difficult and chaotic. If you want more relevant reviews, take a look at CS97 from Spring 2020 onward, which was like the beta to the current 35L.

The main topics covered were Emacs (text editor), Unix, Shell/Bash Scripting, Lisp, Python, C, and Git. React and JavaScript were briefly covered in a lecture but were essential for one assignment and the entire final project. If you've never used React, knowing a little HTML/CSS/JS will help a lot.

Lectures/Homeworks: Eggert's lectures are a lot more theoretical and only cover a little syntax. You need to look up a lot of stuff for homeworks and teach yourself but you’ll learn a lot. Lectures are pretty interesting and I enjoyed them. The late penalty is pretty generous (only 1% off for 1 day late. 2^(N-1)% off for N days late). 3 or more (outta 6) of the homeworks were given extended deadlines. Homeworks can take up many hours.

Midterm and final are difficult and much different to traditional tests. You can't really study for them that much except for doing the practice tests. Many questions are open-ended and require you to understand instead of regurgitate. Some questions are pretty obscure/random. The tests are unlimited open-note, but extremely detailed notes on lectures only help on getting maybe an extra 5%. And don't leave any question blank. You will get some partial credit even if it's completely wrong.

For the final project, most people make a web app with React. Getting a good group where everyone does their fair share is crucial to not spending too much time on it. Your group presents to a discussion at the end of week 10. The project was graded generously (most got 90%-100%). And you get something to put on your resume

This class need a complete reform. It is not professor Eggert's fault but someone in CS department have to do something with it. Once again, everything in this class is a disaster and need a complete reform. Materials in the syllabus are useful but they are so poorly taught that we would rather study the same thing on our own during summer holiday.

Beware of this class! 35L drained so much of my time, so make sure to schedule your quarter appropriately. As others have stated, there needs to be some restructuring.
This class had 2 lab sections per week, with a lab assignment due at the beginning of each week. Attendance for these sections is not mandatory, and usefulness depends on ur TA. Labs 2, 4, 5, and 9 were especially time consuming for me, and all the other labs were still either difficult or annoying af. I turned in most of the labs late, so my lab average was about an 82. I did feel like I learned a lot from trying to do the labs, but this did not help at all for the final lmao. I pulled up with textbooks and hundreds of pages of notes and scored around the median (52), which got me a B. The final was 17 PAGES of the hardest shit ever. Each of the 10 questions were weighted equally and had to do with one of the labs. I straight up left a question blank after reading the directions lool and totally guessed on the multiple choice. There were basically no free points at all, so good luck on that lmao. 3 units does not correspond at all to the necessary workload of this course, and after hours and hours of work I escaped with a B. This class also takes hella time away from all your other courses, so be ready for that

What a bad course. I really have nothing to say that hasn't been said before. I don't think I've learned anything in this class that I didn't have to teach to myself and on top of that, I've lost interest in these topics because of the way this class was handled. I don't think I've met any student who has taken this class and not hated it (or themselves) by the end of it.

He really said that his course was better than the college of letters and science because his course was "harder"? Way to think that your mediocre class is better than any of the amazing courses I've taken in the college of letters and science. It's so boring when a white man is going off about how he thinks non-Engineering subjects are lesser than him.

Also, the fact that he doesn't tell us the answers to the exam or assignments shows that he actually doesn't care about us learning from our mistakes but he just wants to uphold the ridiculous standards that no one apart from him cares about. One of the worst classes I've taken at UCLA and that is really something because I have taken multiple other CS courses which were similar experiences (except CS 33. Shout out to professor Rienman who can do no wrong, cares about his students, teaches well, and doesn't have a god complex).

Eggert, as a lecturer, is very enthusiastic and knowledgable. I can tell he is super passionate about computer science and knows a ton. However, the workload and rigor of this class is TOO MUCH. I can barely catch a break while I was in this class. The professor's lectures were all over the place, with no clear direction and random concepts thrown in as a mush. I still do not understand many of the concepts of the class. Eggert's exams were impossible to study for, as he just puts whatever he wants. Overall, I applaud him for being a good lecturer, but the course needs to be organized better.

This class is a pain in the ass, but as long as you don't cheat (i.e., don't look at GitHubs), you'll learn some really important skills for industry. I'm currently doing an internship, and being comfortable with Linux, bash, ssh, and git is really helpful.

The class is TA-led, so how much you struggle depends on who you get. Regardless, prepare to do a lot of Googling and to read a lot of man pages to get through some of your assignments. The assignments take up a lot of time, but Eggert's late policy is very generous, so you're almost never strapped for time.

The final is fairly difficult, but you can bring as many notes as you want. I recommend finding notes from previous students and printing those out. They also give you practice exams and solutions to them, so you will know what to expect on the final.

For reference, I averaged about a 94% on labs and got 67/100 on the final. The average for the final was about 54, and the standard deviation was 14.

If you actually do the readings, this class will be a lot of work. I read all the assigned A.D readings and additional readings and did most of the S.K. readings (all of those before the midterm and chapter 11). The discussions are very helpful and my TA was very helpful in telling us how to approach the project and often times gave us pseudo or actual code to implement the project. The projects are relatively time consuming but for the most part aren't super difficult.

I got 80% on one of the projects but over 90/100 on all the other projects. I got a 49.5% on the midterm after a regrade(mean was 49.5% and median was 51%). The TA's grade the report at the end and don't seem to care much so I got 100 on it even though I completely rewrote it the day it was due in like an hour. The final was open book and open note so I had a whole binder with a table of contents that really helped in the final which I got a 77% on and ended up with an A overall in the class.

I definitely suggest going to his office hours to clarify on concepts in readings/in class because he is really good at explaining in smaller settings and is a really nice person, so don't be intimidated!

The other reviews are right. This class is a LOT of work. Labs are difficult. Lectures do not go over how to do them. You have to figure out a lot of it yourself (lots of googling). Discussions are also helpful, depending on your TA, with some good hints. Exams are also very hard, that's how Eggert exams are. Open book/notes, but somewhat more difficult conceptually (combine 2 ideas, pros and cons of a hypothetical program to create, etc), as well as some coding problems. Open notes helps, but not much. You need a good understanding of the material to succeed. Grading was very slow this quarter, we didn't have grades on any of the 6 assignments until after the final :/. Very untransparent, which was frustrating. All that being said, this class was VERY helpful. Eggert is a great lecturer, and incredibly smart. He definitely knows what he's talking about (ex: he coded part of emacs, which you use in this class). It's certainly difficult, and labs can be quite tedious, especially because his lectures just discuss the concepts/background of what you're doing, and you have to figure out the syntax/process. But I definitely am thankful I had this class, I learned a LOT. Might be an unpopular opinion, but I intend to take more classes with him (at least 131). You learn a lot in this class, and its a very valuable experience, potentially at the cost of a slightly lower GPA.