Desalvo is an all around great professor. He goes out of his way to make lectures engaging for his students (he uses slides that he posts online, so you’re not screwed if you don’t show up to lecture. Also attendance is not mandatory). He assigns ten coding assignments across the quarter, each of which is due on Friday at 5 PM. There was one midterm and it consisted of only lecture material. Same deal with the final.

Highly recommend this class.

DeSalvo is a fantastic lecturer, he designs the class perfectly to accommodate people who have never programmed before. The homework assignments are a little challenging at times, but it is very easy to get a perfect homework score. His midterm and final are designed such that you will probably use all of the exam time to do them, but they are well balanced between difficult and rather simple questions. He is a very fast grader and you will know how you did on the exam by the end of the day (Or the next day). You also do not need the textbook at all, DeSalvo designs all of his test questions based on his slides and they also contain all the information you would need to do the homework. His lectures are very engaging as he is always full of energy and excitement, not just droning on reading off the slides. 10/10 would take again.