smallbergs a very good teacher but the class is annoying as hell. cs projects are ones were it can be right for your target project but then you must test it over and over to make sure any generalizations you made work all the time. projects 3 and 5 are what will get you. midterm and finals arent bad. he allows you a ton of pages of notes for them but i found them unnecessary.

awesome professor! i came to all his classes even though i wasn't enrolled in them. word of advice: bring a laptop with you, because taking notes by hand will not help you very much (he likes to add onto his example code and show how little changes will affect it). i had no comp sci background and got an A! :)

Excellent teacher.

Style:

Covered the basics really well.

Love this guy :) He speaks in a pretty monotone voice and the class might be relatively boring if you took AP CS in high school, but he's a cool guy. He knows absolutely what he's talking about, and I feel like if I hadn't taken a Comp Sci class in high school I still would've understood it. Definitely better than my high school teachers. The workload isn't too tough, either. Just remember to start your projects early, even if you think you got it. You never know what kind of random bug will pop up and give you issues.

This professor is good. He has a good sense of humor and knowledgeable on what he talks about. The only problem is that computer science doesn't exactly make a great 2 hour lecture, so often times you'll get bored listening or just skip class entirely. His projects and exams are reasonable. If you truly do the work yourself and understand it, you should do well in this class.
A word of warning, watch out for the final's date. From my experience, it fell on the Saturday after Week 10, and Week 10 happens to be the week the last project is due. Make sure you study adequately beforehand.

Smallberg can be boring at times but his teaching, in 31 at least, was pretty fantastic. He goes extremely in depth into every concept almost to a fault. His midterm and final are reasonable, and to top it off he's pretty damn funny too. The work you put into the class directly corresponds with the grade you receive, which in my mind is the trademark of a solid professor.

Typical computer nerd... FANTASTIC PROFESSOR

Take Smallberg hands down over any other professor for CS31/32 (unless its winter quarter and Nachenberg is teaching 32). His lectures are clear, have good examples, and really make you learn (as long as you can stay awake). He doesn't teach out of the textbook at all, but I fell asleep/skipped at least half of his lectures, so I had to read the book before starting the projects. Be warned though, he moves VERY SLOW in lecture and his video lectures online, basically taking an hour to explain things that can be explained in 10 minutes. If you dont have any programming experience like I did before this class, then take Smallberg because he teaches everything as if you know nothing. The projects take 20-40 hours a week, and no I am not kidding. Start them at least a week before (esp projects 3, 5, and 7), because you'll be up till 4am every night that week till it is due. The projects in order of difficulty and time needed are 3, 5, 7, 4, 6, 2, 1. But the projects really make you learn the material. I don't know how Smallberg comes up with them, but he is a genius because if you put in the time, brain, and self-determination to get them working, you really do master the material. Lecture and reading is not enough, you have to do the projects to read the material. Be warned though: writing the code is only half the battle. You have to spend another 2-10 hours testing and debugging your code to make sure it works. The midterm and final are on paper, basically writing and debugging code by hand, which can be a challenge if you depend on your debugger for the projects. I averaged a 98 on the projects, got a 75 (mean 82) on the midterm, 85 (mean 79) on the final, and got an A- in the class.

Very strange guy. His lectures are amazing though... you don't need to read the book if you attend every lecture. His projects/hw's are very involving and take A LOT OF TIME..... get ready for a very time-consuming class. His exams are not that difficult. Although, a lot of students have his old exams, so watch out for those bastards. There was one guy in my class who was sitting next to me, he pulled out his old exam in the middle of the midterm and copied all the answers and left 30 minutes after we started the midterm. Watch out for the curve because of this issue. Otherwise, you learn a lot. Having a good TA is also very important. Make sure you go to the TA who actually speaks English.

Good teaching! Instructive projects! And, he always replies the e-mails soon after I sent them.

Smallberg is a great, well-paced lecturer. I was worried going in, because I had no previous programming experience, but as long as you attend lecture and do well on the projects, you will do well in the class and actually learn programming. The difficulty of the class depends on your interest in the subject. As a computer science major, I was very excited to learn new concepts and started on projects right away, so I didn't find the class very hard. And Smallberg is right- start your projects early. I also recommend to future students to work on your projects alone. I've seen some students always go to TA's and get walked through every aspect of the spec, and they end up failing the exams. (Assignment grades are also capped based on exam grades.) Project 3 and 5 were the most difficult projects, so definitely start early for those. Exams were extremely fair- neither hard nor easy.

Overall, Smallberg is the best lecturer for CS31, so definitely try to take him.