This course was a very challenging, but very rewarding, exploration of computer architecture and low-level topics. The first third of the course, which is spent on circuits and boolean algebra and works up to 8-bit machine code, is definitely the hardest--to echo the other reviews, the Bit Fiddling homework (HW1) was probably the hardest assignment I've ever had in my life. The course does get a lot better after that, though. The second third of the course gets more into machine code and x86-64 assembly, and going in I never thought I'd leap at the chance to learn assembly, but you do after doing machine code for so long. The last third is all about C from top to bottom, from primitive types to arrays, pointers, and dynamic memory.

The hardest homework was definitely Homework 1, and I also struggled with Homework 9 significantly. Labs often had an unpredictable difficulty, and many of the later ones required going to office hours to figure out. Professor Hott was exceedingly kind and very helpful in office hours (in-person and online). Though he experienced a series of personal tragedies this semester, I still found his handling of the course to be well-organized and even. He clearly enjoys the course material and teaching it, and is invested in making the course better in the future--he offered extra credit for completing the course evaluation and for giving a brief suggestion to improve the course on the final exam.

Above all, I found that this course works together with DSA1 to help you figure out whether you enjoy high-level programming (OOP, program analysis) or low-level programming (assembly/C with great control but great responsibility) more. This course is definitely more difficult than DSA1, but I enjoyed this class way more, and I know I want to work in the parts of CS that use this material more. Hopefully, bumps in the road can be smoothed out for you in future semesters, and the course can be a better experience.

Tips: use a Linux or Unix-based development environment for this class. For Mac users, this can be your built-in terminal, and for Windows users, you can do this with Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) without having to run a virtual machine. Using a Linux or Linux-based environment is far easier than trying to use something like Windows PowerShell, and is really what the course is about. When things go wrong, it's way faster to troubleshoot in Linux or related environments than in PowerShell. Also, definitely go to office hours, especially for Homework 1 and the later labs. This course is tough, but it is worth it. #tCFfall22