He has a habit of going on tangents and making the material more confusing than it needs to be. I recommend looking up topics if you don't understand them after lecture. Nevertheless, Pixie is a cute dog. Would take again.

This was my first time taking a CS course and the way the material was broken down and presented was manageable even for a complete beginner like me. The course mark was based on 7 projects, 1 midterm, and 1 final. The projects were reasonable (#3 took up more time than the others tho) but make sure you don't start them last minute and take advantage of office hours if you get stuck. The midterm/final were very straight forward-- make sure you understand the projects because the tests were heavily based on concepts seen in the projects. Overall I enjoyed the class and bonus points for the professor's dog who would often show up on camera.

Howard did an amazing job of teaching this course in such a way that even though I had no coding experience (it took me a couple of days to realize int meant integer haha) it was by no means a hard or difficult class. The workload could at times be excessive, but that is just the nature of coding and the time you have to put into actually typing code, and even testing it. It really helped me initially to attend OH and ask clarifying questions early on, but after week 4 I had a strong enough understanding of the course and its material to really breeze through the class. Tests are easy, projects take time, lecture could at times be confusing but was overall very clear. And pixie is a big plus :)

Stahl is a great professor, although I did take computer science in high school, so I had an advantage. He tells you all you really need to know for the projects, although for one of the it was really unclear, but he has a forum where people can ask and answer questions. He provides a lot of tests for your programs to make sure you are heading in the right direction, and the only tougher part about this class is the final because the harder material is pushed towards the end and there were some oddly specific questions that I could not find the answer to anywhere.

I took this course in the summer after graduating high school with barely any coding experience. As an absolute beginner who did the tiniest bit of java, this course was very introductory and not too difficult if you take the time to understand the concepts. I think Howard does a good job of explaining everything in his lectures but the slides and class notes are a bit hard to read. Other than that, if you put in the effort, you will do well. The midterms and exam cover everything you learned and never go too far beyond what was covered in class.

I went into this class with no coding experience at all, and Stahl taught pretty well, but I definitely learned more by just doing the projects. The online midterm was super easy, and the final was also relatively easy but definitely required you to actually understand the coding part (moreso than the midterm). Projects 3 and 7 had me wanting to die for a little bit but I finished them (mostly) by myself.
I did not go to a single lecture in person and I'm glad because he talks sooooo slow and I understood him better at 2x.
Overall I thought Stahl was really nice and good at answering project-related questions. Would recommend!!!!!

Pretty much the easiest class I've ever taken.

Overall, I did not find this class too difficult. You do have to put a lot of time into the projects, but you will walk out with a great understanding of C++. Only reason I got an A- was because I did not study for the midterm.
Project grades are based on wether or not you pass all test cases, and Stahl supplies you most of them before you turn it in. Getting 100% on all the projects is very doable. Although, you do have to study for the exams quite a bit, as there's a multiple choice section that requires a lot of practice to remember without a compiler.
If you put in some effort, you will succeed!

Stahl did his job, nothing more, nothing less. I started the class with 6 weeks of zoom lectures, and 4 final weeks back in-person, and frankly, in person was the most boring thing I've ever attended. It was disengaging, slow, and gloom. I will say that I did learn what was needed for CS31, and it is not hard to do well in this class, but it was a slow and tough process to adhere to.

Definitely easier than CS32 with Smallberg/Nachenberg. The projects (35% of our grade) are almost too easy (although the last 2 are a bit tough) and the homework (15%) is straightforward too. The exams are pretty fair (12.5% for Midterm I, 12.5% for Midterm II, and 25% for the final) and he is lenient with regrade requests. He also gives you 2 bonus points on either midterm 1 or 2 depending on if you actually go to section. His lectures can be pretty boring at times but he records them so watching them at 2X speed is recommended in addition to going to his office hours which are helpful. The TAs can be pretty dogshit, not going to lie. Mine barely spoke English and would buffer in real-time. However, Stahl's class is not super difficult and is 100% doable. You can definitely get an A in his CS32 class, which is supposedly a weeder too. I would take it again.