... and then we're toast!

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!

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!

Eggert takes you on quite the roller coaster. I actually liked the readings, I felt it was important for the exams to actually do all the assigned AD readings. Of course, most important was lecture material. But it was difficult to decipher lecture material often, so you had to really pay attention. Other than Yadi, the other TA's weren't super helpful, and we only had 2 out of our 5 labs graded before the final, which was bad, since I had no idea how I was doing.

But overall, the labs were interesting and I think I came out with better knowledge on C programming than anything else.

Highly reccomend the class, but its really tough. Grading is also really weird. There are 4 labs that make up over %30 of our grade, but only lab 0 and lab 1 were graded in time to talk to TAs about grading. The rest were not graded until 2 hours before the grade deadline, and any 0s were left that way even if unfair. The only enjoyable part of this class was lecture, and maybe labs if the grading wasn't so bad. Eggert is a really ood lecturer, and can stay engaging for 2 hours, unless the material is really boring which does happen. The labs are actually pretty fun to do, but hard to test, so a working program might still get a 70-80 because of special case test cases. Exams were very hard, ~%50 averages on both. As a really bad test taker i still did around average on the midterm and below on the final and passed.

EGGERT IS THE GOAT. This class is legendary. As long as you stay on top of your work, you will survive and walk out learning a lot about OS. His tests are impossible so they might not even be worth studying for. <3

This isn't rly a review for Eggert or CS 111, but rather the TA Yadi Cao (and by extension Brian Rosyar). If you see any discussion section TA'd by Yadi Cao, even if you aren't in his section, DROP THE CLASS. Yadi Cao is a TA straight from the depths of hell. Yadi does not prepare for his discussion sections (if he is even present), is always late, and is very rude both in-person and via email. If you try to email him or ask questions on Piazza, don't expect a response from him (or Brian for the matter). The worst part though is his grading standards. Yadi had completely asinine grading schemes for Lab 2 and Lab 3. For Lab 2, he changed the lab significantly and provided no test cases, then proceeded to use over a thousand randomly generated test cases that caused the class mean and median to be in the range of 60. And for Lab 3, we don't even know how he graded it, just that tbe class mean and median was once again in the 60's. It's absurd he's still allowed to TA classes frankly, but I suppose that's to be expected from UCLA.

Unlike 35L, this class has a textbook, which covers 90% of what you need to know for the tests. You don't need the textbook, as everything on the tests is covered in class, but it's nice to have anyways. The tests were decently difficult (average around 60 for both the midterm and the final I think) but fair enough. There were a few particularly challenging questions on each of the exams, but I think you could get a solid grade just by answering the simpler ones and hoping for partials on the hard ones.
The grading for the final and labs 2 and 3 was so ridiculous, I honestly can't tell if they just used an RNG. If you're set on getting a good grade, this may not be the class for you.

This is a classic Eggert class, lectures are interesting but very inconsistently relevant to the assignments. The exams were hard, but the projects were very manageable, I hear they are much easier than in the past.

Paul Eggert is an absolute legend. A veteran of the software development industry, he shines in his lectures while he doles out wisdom from his years of experience. He is irreplaceable.

In terms of exams, yes, they are hard, but one can easily get away with 1-2 standard deviations above the mean by writing down what seems reasonable. Much easier than other exams where you absolutely must know the answer.

Readings were a little bit harsh. Too many readings, not much useful content on them in the exams. One of the books, Principles of Computer System Design: An Introduction by Jerome H. Saltzer and M. Frans Kaashoek (SK), was way too stuffy.

Projects were an absolute disaster this quarter. Way too easy, the skeleton gives everything away. Takes me only like 2 hours to complete. Absolute disgrace, learning nothing from them. Please note that I talked to the professor about this—this isn't his fault, he says he has to keep the labs because the TAs are only trained on them.

I didn't really attend discussion, but the first one was pretty good. Solid TA. Just by design of the course, this discussion wasn't very useful. Reading over the PDF worked just as well for me.