Eggert is Eggert, just pray for not getting egged on the exams.

Lectures always come after assignments so be sure to start googling early! Never wait for the lectures. The lectures are helpful in the sense that they contain a lot of information, but never count on it to help you with any of your assignments. Be sure to find a better discussion session, especially the ones that guides you through assignments. Getting 100 on each assignment is doable but not neccessary since they worth little.

There is a group project to build a full-stack webapp (start early!!!). As long as your app covered the features in the spec and looks beautiful and that your personal contribution (tracked via git history) and report show enough effort you will get full score.

Since this is still an experimental lecture, some important stuff got left out by the end of the quarter, I think professor Eggert will try to fix that next time.

Difficulty levels
Assignment1: Easy
Assignment2: Medium
Assingment3: Easy/Medium
Assignmrnt4: Easy
Assignment5: Hard
Assignment6: Hard
Midterm: Eggert
Final: Eggggggggert (not typo)
Project: medium to hard (your choice)

Worst class that I've ever taken. The workload is insane especially for the first 6 weeks. It eases up a tad but then they had the worst assignment ever during week 10 (when the final is on the Sunday before finals week) that was so time consuming and hard that half the class didn't even do it. You're expected to learn pretty much a whole language/aspect of cs (bash, python, c, linking, git) and then complete super time consuming hw assignments showing "mastery" of a concept that you just learned. Also, Eggert doesn't teach the class. The TAs do, so if you get a bad TA then you're screwed. The only good thing about this class is the generous late policy. The final exam was terrible and scarring. I never want to take this class again and I never want to take an Eggert exam either. This class needs to be reworked. The workload can be cut in half easily especially for a 3 unit class. I made the mistake of taking this at the same time as CS 33 and the workload was insane. Worst quarter at ucla so far. I have no clue how I scraped out with a B but I don't want to think about this class anymore.

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.

It's almost like a philosophy of programming languages class - Eggert's lectures are engaging, thoughtful, and worth every second of your time. Each lecture is jam-packed with information (not always timely in relation to the projects, unfortunately). Each lecture genuinely feels like a valuable use of your time. You start to really enjoy every second of it. Then you remember it's still an Eggert CS class, and the projects destroy your very soul.

This is not a class to double with another hard class - this is a "take a GE, a moderately hard class (maybe) and another easy major class, then focus most of your efforts on this" kind of class. Projects are insanely difficult. Like insanely. Be prepared to sink hours of your life each week into them. You're pretty surely going to finish them, but it's going to take some willpower and some sacrifice.

Exams are typical Eggert fare - asking lots of theoretical questions that involve making arguments and backing them up. Honestly, after taking his CS 33, I think I was just more prepared for these, and they didn't seem that bad. Just pay attention in lecture, make sure your notes are well-organized, and present coherent answers to the questions he asks, citing stuff from lecture/discussion. If you're totally lost, find any relevant notes you have for the question, and start writing down key words and concepts in a way that seems like you're at least semi-legitimately trying to answer the question. Generally, that should get you to a B, if not an A, on the exam (after the curve, obviously, only like 4 people got a legit 90+ on these exams).

Yes, this class is stressful. Yes, it's a lot of work. Yes, you'll probably hate it while you're taking it (I know I did at times). However, I think you learn a good amount, and get a great discussion on a lot of the "why's" in CS. Honestly, I wish I'd tried to take every Eggert class I could have. If you have the opportunity to take 131 with him, do it - just make sure you're emotionally prepared to cry over some of your half-baked attempts at mutually recursive grammar parsing functional language nonsense.

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!

Be warned! This class is nothing like other lower-div classes such as CS31 and 32. I aced CS 31-33 but failed miserably in this class. CS97 and probably CS35l require a higher level of ability of self study and conquering problems on your own.

CS35L is probably the hardest class I've taken so far. You have 10+ hours worth of assignments each week, and a huge final project. The midterms and finals were all pretty hard and open ended, although this quarter Eggert experimented with MCQs. That being said, I've learned so much from this course and I genuinely believe that this is the most important computer science course. The skills you learn from this course are super applicable (shell scripting, web dev, maybe not elisp, makefiles, git).

For the midterm and final, I suggest having super detailed notes that you can copy down in the exam. Make sure to understand the bigger ideas and how different topics link together.

For the final project, try to find a good team and START EARLY.

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).

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.