This has been the most difficult course I have ever taken. I am certain I will fail, but not because I did not try. The course materials were almost completely unrelated to the assignments and were so theoretically oriented as to prevent any utility in practical matters. The assignments ranged from extremely difficult to insurmountable, and have a complete lack of documentation and specification. Most of the time I spent on the projects was attempting to guess what the instructor actually wanted. We were asked to produce output without clear specifications of what said output should be. The professor taught primarily by reading lecture slides which were written for a different course by someone else. We were given poorly documented tools to use and very little (practically none) instruction in the use of these tools. The professor was practically unavailable for the second half of the semester. The TA's barely spoke English and seemed at once uninterested and unavailable to the need of the students. While the professor is clearly very knowledgeable in this subject, his choice to use lecture slides as a sole resource for the class combined with a text which could best be described as baffling and lead to a wholly unsatisfying class experience. I hope that when I take this course again (as it is required by the CS major) it will have undergone a sincere redesign in its approach, its assignments, and its course materials.
First, and I could be wrong about this, but I fail to see why this course is required when other courses covering topics like Databases and Networking aren't. It seems that it is either another attempt to get students to drop CS as a major or they just know nobody would take the class if it wasn't required. Second, I don't understand why what could be the hardest class we will have to take has lectures only half the semester. Third, this class took way too much of my time. The projects were so long and complicated that I didn't have time for my other classes. Fourth, the book wasn't very helpful or easy to read. Fifth, they graded extremely hard. You could spend several hours on a project and still get a 0. There was almost no way to get partial credit. You either finished or you didn't. Sixth, there were no solutions given for the projects. I think the lectures should have been ran the whole semester and more should have been done in the PSO. Most of the time, they were just there to answer questions. They should have gone over what was covered in the lecture and showed how it applied to our projects The project need to be easier and less time consuming. Maybe we could have to write code only for selected non-terminals. Also, give solutions to projects.
Maybe you are expert in this, but you did very poor job in teaching. And your job as teaching would rate as F (60%) because that is avg grade of class now.
Did a bad job on teaching the visitors and generic java. Didn't understand projects till I turned them in. Need to have a special session at night during the week that is taught by the TA and is especially for helping students on the projects. Very flexible on project turn-ins (good thing).
Partial credit for projects wasn't fairly given.
This course was perhaps the most relentless, tiresome class I have ever taken. At the end of 4 months I have not developed any interest in compilers and in fact my interest in computer science has decreased. 100 hour walk? eh ... more like 200 hours - do I wanna be a code monkey? I don't think so ... I have better things to do with my life than code 6 hours a day ... I don't think so. You are a brilliant man ... very creative project but not my cup of tea really. Grading wasn't fair; no partial credit at all !!
This course sucked as for the following reasons: (1) What the hell did we do for the first month and a half? Nothing. We probably could have been given the front end during that time instead of during project 3. (2) Even if you got 95% of the project working, you could still get a 0. There has got to be a better way to give some kind of partial credit. The list goes on but I don't feel like writing.
Trying to figure out the visitors in time to do the first project sucked. Please, God, don't make me have to go through this again!
I think the final was much too difficult. It did not accurately reflect what we learned. The projects required much too much effort and hours. The topic of visitors should have been taught before the projects started getting assigned. Not having class for a month made the final virtually impossible. Overall this class was not fun and enjoyable.
The book does not follow along with the material covered in lecture or the projects.
It seems that this course always hide something. Why not simply tell us what is required and what is more important. Why not give us examples in the class and explain details. Because computer science is difficult and most of us are not talented. Finally, I wish all solutions of the homeworks are posted.