Review:
You'll feel like you're in a class from the 70's learning arcane information about computer languages, in my opinion, completely irrelevant to modern knowledge. The languages start off with BF (It's short for "brainfuck" for a reason), random stuff about C++, and then the agony of coding in Lisp and Prolog. I thought the books are poorly written and overlap with the lecture notes posted online (the one good thing about the class). The book about Prolog, for instance, is from perhaps the 80's and apparently the only introductory book out there. Folks, there's a reason Prolog and BF aren't taught in the classroom. It's because they're painful languages with little to no practical application. You'll spend many hours a week banging your head against the wall while you futilely try to decipher the horrendous syntax of these monster assignments Couch cooks up.

All these languages are taught in a short semester, and you're expected to do complex projects on these subjects that aren't even remotely interesting.

Couch has the potential to be a GREAT professor -- he's actually a very smart man. But whoever came up with the curriculum for this course (probably Couch..) is a zany individual.

Workload:
In my opinion, the projects are a horrendous waste of time. There was one due roughly every ten days, and I'd estimate it took me at least 20-30 hours to get right. It's not abnormal for you to spend hours just looking at the project description, trying to figure out what the hell Couch wants you to do.

You're allowed to redo the projects for a 10% penalty upon each submission, but that basically means you're just always behind, trying to improve an abysmal score on an old project.

Oh yeah. And the grading is pretty much set in stone according to the guidelines posted at beginning of year (projects worth about 50% of total grade). There is no curve. If you do not work hard, you will not do well in this class. Take "Jewish Studies" or "American Fiction" for that easy A.

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