Howard explains clearly about concept in C++ and he is very nice! His teaching of CS31 can be easily understood by students who are new to programming. Though the workload of projects (one every week) is a little bit heavy, it can be handled well if you think and design your program carefully.

He Types Everything Like This

Going into this class, I had no interest in computer science in general and only took this class to fulfill the requirement. However, Professor Stahl completely changed my point of view on this and got me interested in the subject.
Professor Stahl is incredibly passionate about teaching Com Sci and made the quarter a joy. As someone with no coding experience, he made this class incredibly easy to understand as he really broke it into pieces using analogies we could understand. I was unable to attend half of the lectures, but I learned just as efficiently through zoom. It felt weird not hearing his voice on x2 speed at one point.
The exams offer no surprises and he grades the projects and homework very leniently. Overall, if you have little experience in coding and are looking to learn more, this is 100% the class to take.

lots of work

I am not a cs major nor is cs required for my major, I just decided to take this class to see if I would be interested in it. If you are in this position, do not take this class!!! Other reviews said that no coding experience is necessary, but I did not find this to be the case. Howard used a lot of jargon without thorough explanation, which made the information hard to follow. While this class is titled "Introduction to Computer Science 1," there wasn't much introductory about it. Maybe it was an introduction to C++, but I think there was an unspoken expectation that most people had prior coding experience, at least with another language. Howard is a nice guy, and I do believe he truly cares and wishes success for his students, as class always has a Zoom option and is recorded. He also gave an extra credit midterm point for going to discussion which was nice. I was able to manage but it required extensive work outside of class (including buying and reading the textbook, even though you don't otherwise need it) and help from others. Overall, this clearly was more advanced than what I was looking for, so I suggest that if you are just looking to test the waters of cs, take PIC 10A or another easier alternative.

As someone with a good amount of coding experience (took AP CSA in high school) this class was generally quite easy. I do know that there were students who found the class to be difficult, however, so take whatever I say with a grain on salt.

Prof. Stahl was overall a great professor. He was good at teaching and going over the basics of C++ and coding. I stopped going to lectures after week two because I found them to be long and boring. He does record them, though, so you can always watch them on 2x speed (as mentioned the professor does talk kind of slow). I would definitely recommend going to discussion section, since the TAs do a quick condensed review of the week's content and you can get 1 point extra credit for attending a majority of discussion sections. The TA for my assigned section was pretty terrible (the LA was pretty good), but you are allowed to go to any of the sections to want and still get the extra credit, so I just went to a different TA's section for the rest of the quarter.

Because of the fires at the beginning of the quarter some material at the end of the course got cut and didn't make it onto the final. The exams were very fair (on the midterm Prof. Stahl basically gave us some freebie questions), though there were some annoying questions. We had six programming projects, and I would suggest starting them soon since working through them and debugging takes time. Project 3 was supposed to be the most difficult, and it took the most time out of all of them, but I heard that the professor and TAs were very helpful during office hours for any students who were stuck. Homework was probably the most annoying, and there were some instances with faulty/badly written questions, but the professor just ended up throwing those questions out.

Overall the class was pretty chill and I would highly recommend taking CS 31 with Stahl, especially if you don't have any programming experience.

He uses the finder to open applications on his computer, and it lowk just pmo im ngl....

As someone who has never touched CS with a 5 ft pole, this class was honestly doable. In fact, the lecture may have been a little too slow. Howard is really helpful and attentive (he responds to emails and discussion post questions pretty quickly). He also offered extra credit for people who attend discussion sections (0.5 added to your midterm score). His tests were pretty decent and both my midterm/final grades were higher than my projects grade. For tests, I would say the projects/worksheets he gives out are the best way to study (although the textbook is free, I gave up reading it because it was too dense and I couldn't comprehend most of it; just take lecture notes).

I would say the hardest part about this class for non-coders is the attention to detail you need when you test your code. Even if Codeboard says you did well, you still need to test A LOT of other cases to make sure you don't have logic errors. I did pretty badly on one project (heads up Project 3 is a huge jump in difficulty so start as soon as he releases it), but I was still able to salvage my grade with other projects/tests.

Goated professor. I've had friends become miserable after taking CS 31 with Smallberg, and then I personally took Huang for CS 31 during the winter, but had to drop it because I had no idea what was going on in class. I decided to take Stahl for the summer, and it has been the best decision ever. His exams are EXTREMELY fair. His homeworks are assigned once a week and are all multiple choice (20 problems long), they're also pretty straightforward. The projects are very similar to what other professor's for CS 31 assign, as expected. However, Stahl takes the time during his lectures to thoroughly run through the project specs, and he mentions common errors people may run into. He also basically does the projects for us part by part, but just by using different examples. If you fail this class with him, then IDK what to tell you bro. He is the reason I no longer feel like an imposter in CS. If you have no prior coding experience, Stahl is your best bet. If you have prior coding experience but just want an easy A, Stahl is also your best bet. Though, if you have prior experience, his lectures might bore you because they're pretty slow. Overall, he's great at explaining concepts and uses analogies that make the material easier to understand. I'm looking forward to taking him for CS 32 this upcoming fall.

In my experience, Professor Stahl is a wonderful teacher -- he knows exactly how to explain concepts to beginners. Although lectures can get boring at times (because they are 2 hours long), Professor Stahl tries his best to ensure he does not ramble. The tests in the class are EXTREMELY FAIR. He will tell you what kinds of questions to expect, provide practice, and even say he does not make trick questions (he really doesn't). Overall, if you are able to do all 6 projects by yourself, you should have no issue with the tests. The projects he assigns are also very fair and, with decent coding experience, can be completed in 1-2.5 hours.

To be fair, I had some coding experience (AP CS), but it was my first time learning C++. Even then, I found the class to be very easy and fair. If you have coding experience, you should be able to breeze through this class. Loved Howard, he's a great guy.