I'll keep it short. For everyone that has taken Eggert, you either really love him or you absolutely despise him. I fall into the latter category. Eggert is one of those professors that is just absolutely brilliant. Because of this, he doesn't know how to give a decent lecture that will be useful for his tests. His tests are insanely difficult, and unless you spend hours following him around and listening to him, there is no way to prepare for his midterms and final. It is common knowledge that Eggert makes up his tests on the fly (usually the night before or the morning of). The fact that his tests are .txt files should be clue that you are going to get wrecked in this class.

Now, if you already know the material, or are just one of those kids that learns material with ease, and is brilliant like Eggert, then go ahead and take this class. If you are a reasonably intelligent person like myself, who thinks and acts like normal students, then absolutely do not take this class (let alone any class if you can) with Eggert, as you will be miserable. The material covered in the book, and in most of his lectures is completely irrelevant to what will be tested as he doesn't even remember what he lectured about. I went to his office hours once to ask him the answer to one of the midterm questions. After staring at the question (for no lie) 20 minutes, he looked up at me and told me he had no idea what the answer was. Incredible.

Also, note that this isn't a typical computer science class, and you will be writing very little code. The test questions (for the most part) are all paragraph responses. In addition, the grade scheme (and solutions) for the test are written entirely by the TAs. That along with the fact that all projects are graded by the TAs just show that Eggert basically takes no part in your grade. If you get terrible TAs like I have had this quarter, then expect to be in for a rough quarter.

The class started out with full capacity (190 or so), plus the waitlist was full (with 35). After the first couple weeks, the waitlist was empty. After the first midterm, there were only 160 students in the class. After the 6th week to 8th week, there were only 130 or so kids left in the class. Just goes to show that taking CS33 with Eggert in the Fall is thee worst decision to ever make. Some argue that you learn more when you take it with him, but this is nonsense.

I don't hate Eggert as a person, as he is an incredibly cool and fun professor, and is one of the most intelligent professors I have had here. The fact that he is so smart, and knows everything about computer science is the reason why he can make up the tests the night before giving them. However, it would be a much smarter decision to take this class your first year if you can, and in the Spring with Professor Reinmann. His class is incredibly easy, he gives tons of extra credit, and about 60%+ of the class got A's last spring (no kidding). I know people that got C's and D's in CS31 and CS32 that ended up getting A's in CS33 with Reinmann. Due to my circumstances, I wasn't able to take it with him in the Spring, but I am giving this advice to help you plan your schedules now. Trust me, you will absolutely regret taking CS33 with Eggert in the Fall. I know upperclassmen that have gotten A's with Eggert, but have also said that his class was the worst. Just look at the grade distribution above. 8% or so got F's, and there were a bunch of C's and such. Only 18% got A's is the only thing you need to see to know that you will get wrecked vs. CS31 and CS32 where ~40% of the students got A's.

Okay, I lied this wasn't short, but I needed to rant about this course, CS33, the destroyer of worlds.

Professor Eggert is actually one of the worst professors I've had at UCLA. He has terrible lectures that are irrelevant to the reading assigned, and gives tests on subjects that are actually not in the book. Seriously avoid taking any class with him at all costs I hate him with a passion

The difficulty of this class is heavily overblown.

I had him for 33 and 131, and his 131 is miles better. He covered a lot of materials (the whole webber textbook + some scheme and python concepts), but he did cover 80% of them well and with good clarity. He also used stories and jokes to help us understand concepts.

Some of his homework is quite fun, like the first OCaml homework and the Prolog homework, but others are either too hard or unable to cover the core essence of a language. For example, the Scheme assignment failed to cover continuation and the Java assignment failed to cover OOP. The second OCaml homework is too hard and I hope he can at least mention some of the ideas in class.

The Python project is fun, too, but it took too much time to figure everything out and it was a pain to finish both the project and the last homework in week 10.

His exams are "more normal" than those from his 33 (!!! definitely much harder than other professor's exams !!!). I'm not sure if he wants to be a nicer guy or he always gives easier exams in 131.

His final covers some details in the book. I suggest to read the whole Webber textbook to not only improve your understanding but also prepare for the exam.

Open-book midterm and final so textbook necessary. Selling textbook for Eggert 131: Modern Programming Languages for 40 dollars (original price 80+) text **********

People recommend taking 35L before 33 or at the same time for a reason. For those who complain about 35L materials, if you choose not to take 35L with 33, it's your fault for having to figure out Linux, C and GDB. I agree TAs are bad, but you have to pay the price for not following advices.

I hate to say it but you learn a lot from this class. However, you get the information forced into you in the most difficult way possible because most of the time, your TA isn't that good. The only resource you have is the powerpoint which is definitely insufficient so you're kind of stuck if you don't know the materials. At least for CS 33, you get a book to read. This isn't so. I wished the TA is better or at least provide some book for you to study so you don't get stuck doing something that should have been very basic. The projects themselves are really hard and very time consuming. TA office hours are not bad, depending on the TA you go to. Overall, this class is very informative but it could have been a lot easier if the classroom was taught correctly.

Eggert is an incredibly challenging professor. There is a lot of necessary reading and his notes are incredibly messy. Unless you read before you can get lost and he does make mistakes at times that no one corrects him on. You have to be on your stuff in this class. I wouldn't recommend him unless you really want to be challenged, because if you want that then he's your man.

Inevitably we ended up with Eggert...

Eggert is very smart, and there's no denying about that. However, his lecture is very very unclear even after reading the textbook before every single lecture. He jumps around topics and mentions that he forgot to cover some material last lecture and suddenly jumps to that.

His exams? Don't even think about doing well on it. There are just a very small portion that is reflective of lecture and book material, and the rest is more of guessing your way through hoping to score points. Averages are high 50's and I would say that the tests are only somewhat fair. There are indeed material we have no idea was covered, that was part of one huge exam question. Perhaps the fact that Eggert writes exams focusing on stuff "he glances or skims through for a few seconds in lecture" is true.

The labs: They are infinitely more difficult than CS31 and 32 labs. We are expected to navigate through C and GDB super well. The time to finish labs is comparable to CS32, if not longer, but at least for CS32, everything is easy. This is plain hard.

I am currently taking this course now so I can't comment on the final, but I just want to say that this is the single biggest factor of making my spring quarter absolutely horrendous and nightmarish. I learned a lot but in a difficult way, so I do give credit to Eggert for making this class difficult so only the brightest of the brightest do well. However, please prepare yourselves for this challenge if you are planning to take it in the future, say fall 2017.

I sort of liked this class, mostly because the material was really interesting to me. But it was still incredibly difficult. Without help or a solid study group, you WILL suffer! Always do assignments with your friends so you can figure things out, because Eggert provides little to no instructions. With teamwork and a lot of googling, you can get full credit on every lab. You just have to put in the effort. Discussion can be boring but if you have a good TA, they can be incredibly helpful in explaining material (because Eggert won't), and provide lots of help on Homeworks and Labs. I had Swathi Patnaikuni for my TA and she was the best TA I've had for a CS class so far, so try to get her section if she's available.

Lecture was dry and Eggert raced through the material. I would HIGHLY recommend doing all the assigned reading *before* lecture, because Eggert tends to focus on what he thinks is important. With the background knowledge of the reading, you can fill in holes by yourself and make connections where Eggert otherwise won't. (But he will always stop to answer every question and reexplain things if asked to). Even if it's a lot of reading, you can always break it up between two nights and it only spend 45 minutes each night reading. Also, tests are open book, so it's useful to be familiar with the text so you can find what you're being asked about quickly.

Nothing can really prepare you for tests, he asked about topics on the final that were never mentioned in lecture, and weren't in the book. You kind of just have to write down facts about what you think is related and hope for partial credit. As long as you can rock one test and get around average on the others, you should be fine getting on the good side of the curve.

You may have to take another course like 35L with him in the future, but you'll be used to/prepared for him by then.