CS 3140

If I had to describe Professor McBurney's lectures in one word, it would be 'redditor'. McBurney is a walking, talking embodiment of disorganization and eccentricity. His lectures feel more like a meandering stream of consciousness than a structured educational experience. The impact of his toxic attitude is palpable. He fosters an environment where arrogance is mistaken for intelligence.

Half the course content is somewhat useful, covering essentials like design patterns and testing, but the other half is a complete waste of time (JavaFX). It's clear McBurney hasn't stepped foot in the real world of tech; his teachings are detached from industry realities as anyone with industry experience would know. Half the time, I wondered if he was deliberately trying to misguide students without industry experience or if he was just profoundly clueless.

Comparing McBurney to Professor Nguyen, McBurney's grading is definitely less forgiving according to most people I know. But despite some of the grading, the class itself isn't particularly challenging. It's a pretty easy A with some pretty okay assignments making up the majority of your grade.

His attitude is another story. McBurney’s responses towards students' questions was a blend of snark and condescension. It's baffling how someone so full of themselves can offer so little substance. He's the embodiment of the sexist greasy CS stereotype who gets into arguments on Twitter or Reddit, oozing self-importance and indifference towards his students. McBurney seems to really show off the culture issue in Computer Science. According to my female friends, his conduct towards them seems to be much more negative.

With all that being said, I didn't think the course was that bad, McBurney as a professor just put a really bad taste in my mouth. If you take the class, you will learn some useful stuff and probably get an A as well.

#tCFF23

The class exams are a lot of memorization, with the midterm making up 12.5% of your grade and the final taking up 22.5% of your grade. The rest of your grade (besides the quizzes which are made to be easy knowledge recaps w/tons of leeway) is made up of the projects. You can lowk do the first two projects alone, but make sure to find good teammates for the other 4 (you can work with the same teammate for a maximum of 4 of the 6 projects). Also, Professor McBurney is a stickler for rules and sticking to the guidelines, so double check the specifications for each project. #TCF24

My thoughts on McBurney are conflicting. The actual course is very interesting and provides an incredible foundation into higher-level projects and programming. However, Professor McBurney's attitude often gets in the way of these benefits.

Don't bother asking a question on Piazza. He'll just “direct you to the writeup”, or deliver some other snarky response. He is a big fan of using convoluted language to explain seemingly simple topics.
SDE is a class that I honestly learned more from just by reviewing the lecture slides at my own pace and supplementing it with the textbook. The textbook, written by McBurney, is extremely well-written and does a good job of summing up the necessary content. That's not to say don't go to lecture (because he doesn't record those anyway), but be prepared to do extra work outside of lecture to understand the course content.
START HOMEWORKS EARLY!!!! They are lengthy and dense and you will struggle, but that's the best way of learning and applying the course content. Ultimately, it's a very enjoyable class if you make the most of it.

#tCFF24

This class actually is very useful, but its also awful in many other ways. McBurney is a good lecturer but as the other commentors would put it, he has an attitude to say at the very least. At his worst (according to the reviews here), he's outright sociopathic and lacks basic empathy at times, but I haven't really seen anything of that nature myself outside his attitude on Piazza. The readings for this class are good.... when they exist. There's straight up several parts of the course site that straight up do not exist, meaning the only way to study for them is directly off the slides as lectures aren't recorded (and said slides are of dubious quality as a whole). Is condescending/snarky on piazza for no apparent reason for asking basic questions. Exams are 90% memorizing syntax and 10% actual concepts. Studying for the mid-term is fairly reasonable, but the final is comprehensive and covers such a vast amount of content that its rather difficult to study for it without doing so for several days on end ahead of time (not to mention half the things on the study guide straight up not being on the exam). He has also stated on piazza that if he were able to say what was on the exam, he'd give red herring answers, which just seems outright strange to me to want your students to do worse on it.. Nguyen's class instead weights the homeworks far more heavily and the exams are respectively worth 10% of the grade each, which is far more reasonable than 22.5% for what's essentially a measure of how hard you crammed and memorized syntax instead of a measure of how hard you worked in the class. Homework can be somewhat dicey sometimes depending on your grader and your teammates, but its where most of the good parts of this class lie, and its hard to do bad on them if you have competent teammates. This class isn't bad but take Nguyen's if you want to be graded on your effort in the class instead of how good you are at cramming for exams.

Honestly really enjoyed this class, but what ruined it for me was Professor Mcburney. I can wholeheartedly say all the rumors about him being an arrogant egomaniac are very true.

Starting off with the homework, there are 6 total programming assignments, but the 6th one is weighted a little bit higher than the rest since you're building the back and front end from scratch. I will say these are very manageable. Just make sure you have a good group. I would also suggest really reading through the homework document, so you don't make any small mistakes or miss any edge cases.

Now for the exams, one midterm and one final, both of which aren't worth a significant amount, 12% and 22& respectively. Mcburney's exams are basically a memorization game, and they really only test your ability to cram and memorize the course pack. He'll ask questions like "what is the one sentance I used to describe this random concept verbatim" or else you get no points. And don't even THINK about submitting regrade requests. I submitted a request with the intent of clarifying my grading. However, Mcburney quickly told me that my requests were “frivolous” so one point was deducted from my exam. Despite there being a genuine basis for my request. Mcburney seems to have such an inflated ego that the mere implication that his rubric could be wrong is met with such unfair punishment. I also tried to contact him personally to resolve the matter, and I was immediately shut down, telling me that a point doesn't impact my grade, so I should get over it.

The way Mcburney conducts himself on Piazza is also baffling; his responses are always either sarcastic or patronizing. Why be a professor if you get annoyed at students for not understanding something you think is obvious? The whole point of being a professor...is well TEACHING.

But hey, I'm just one of many people who have had awful experiences with Mcbruney, so my advice is to wait until Spring to take this class with Nguyen.

This course has potential, but Professor McBurney’s actions severely impact the learning experience. He frequently cancels class last minute, citing "family issues," showing little regard for students' time. His teaching style is disorganized and dismissive, with outdated homework assignments that often include errors because he reuses them without updating. Despite these issues, late submissions are not accepted for any reason, per his syllabus:

"Late team submissions will not be accepted for ANY REASON WHATSOEVER... No Exceptions for ANY REASON!"

This policy is harsh, especially for CS students balancing other demanding courses. The exams, weighted at 22.5% each, focus on memorization over understanding, while incomplete materials force reliance on vague slides. On Piazza, his responses are often condescending, discouraging students from asking questions. While homework assignments offer learning opportunities, the inflexible policies, lack of preparation, and dismissive attitude make the course unnecessarily stressful. Consider other options if possible.

This course was pretty good!

I am not sure if he is still going to teach the course, but McBurney was a fine lecturer, but the course readings are all you really need to study for the exams and/or review concepts and were honestly BETTER, so his lectures were often pretty empty. However, I would still highly recommend attending lectures because of the examples he does in class. As many have noted, on the Piazza his responses could seem sassy, judgemental, or rude, they were at many times helpful (when he wasn't saying he cannot answer anything) and even humorous. When talking to him in-person, he was a chill guy who was very conversational. I know that many others have had very unfavorable experiences with him, but I did not have any of that sort.

The course itself was great! Sure, there's the fact that many wished we could use something other than Java, but it makes plenty of sense as many will take this course after CS 2100 and you learn all sorts of usual tools with Java: JavaFX is very limited but a good starting point for frontend, Gradle for building executable files, JUnit and Mockito for testing, Git/Github for version control, JSON and SQLite for data management.

The homeworks were sometimes rather stressful, but with good understanding of the assignment and course content and effective testing, getting sufficient grades was not hard. The homeworks served as really great opportunities for better understanding course content. There were 6 homeworks. You could work with two other people for each homework, but only a maximum of four times, so save people you work better with for the later, more difficult homeworks.

Exams were tricky for sure, but the grading was honestly rather lenient. I and many others thought the final was going to be a grade destroyer, but there was leniency with many questions and nobody I knew ended up doing terribly.

Overall, this course is HIGHLY important for anybody interesting in software engineering, as it highlights many important concepts and practices that should be known and followed.

You learn the dumbest material!!! Everything taught is irrelevant. Why do i need to memorize patterns broe fucking idiot. Hes an asshole too you go to OH and he just like yells at you for not understanding. The material is so basic too he just makes it hard cus hes a loser

I wouldn't be surprised if he beats his wife!!!