CS 2110

I'm a first year, and I took this class first semester because I had AP credit for APCS and I thought this class was insanely easy. The first 3/4 of the class is just things we already learned in APCS, and the new stuff wasn't too bad. Stone isn't the greatest teacher ever. He's not as great of a lecturer as the other professors, and his slides are slightly disorganized sometimes, but he's definitely not as bad as the other reviews say. I was expecting him to be terrible based on his reviews here, but he was mediocre. I don't think it matters though because he's going to be the only one teaching from Spring 2022 onwards. He's actually pretty helpful if you ask him questions. You get one homework assignment a week, and the lab time is when you work on it with your cohort. I never spent anytime doing CS outside of the lab, so overall pretty easy class. Would recommend.

#tCFfall2021

CS2110 for fall2020 ran a little differently cause of covid so we had Dennis Graham, Nada Basit, and Derrick Stone all rotate lectures per class. That being said, Nada Basit is definitely the best, she leaves zero holes and is a great lecturer. Derrick Stone is the next best, he isn't as clear as Nada Basit but he's alright, you should definitely do the textbook reading before watching his lecture. I think this was Daniel Grahams first semester teaching 2110, he was an OK explainer but probably the worst of the three, though he was not bad at all. If you took AP or IB computer science in highschool you'll probably ace this class, if you're new to coding like I was do NOT procrastinate on the homeworks; they aren't incredibly difficult but some of them can be really long and the submission page is will give you errors that you'll most likely need a TA to help you solve. The labs are basically completion grades, The test multiple choice is kind of hard but the coding portions are pretty easy, the weekly quizzes aren't too hard either.

Course was very interesting, labs are short but don't wait until the last minute to start them especially since they don't take long at all. Start homework individually early on, you can do it in one day but you probably won't learn the best and will have to rely on the TA's who get pretty backed up the day and the day before homework is due. Head TA Kevin Mulliss was very condescending but the others are very helpful and are easy to talk to. You don't have to do the readings to do well but they are helpful, and you can find PDF versions online. If there are cohorts, try to form relationships early on so you can use each other as resources and have another friend in the class.

I took this Fall 2020 as a first year student. Technically, I had Prof. Stone as my professor but it was really all three teachers since it was online. The class is very easy. Lectures are easy to understand and the textbook is a good read as well. It was a good refresher of Java for me and learning a few new things I wasn't taught in high school. There's one homework assignment due and one quiz due every week as well. Most of the homework assignments can be completed in one night (no more than 2-4 hours) with the exception of maybe 2-3 assignments that I would actually describe as 'difficult' and took longer than normal. There are 'labs' with every lecture but they're based on effort, not accuracy/completion. All the teachers are good lecturers although I do prefer Basit the most of the three. The 'live' codings were very helpful as well. There were three exams in total with a time constraint of 1.5-2 hours, but it didn't take me more than 40 minutes on any the exams. The teachers were available pretty much at all hours on Discord if you need help. Overall really simple and easy; probably one of my more 'fun' classes I took this semester. #tCF2020

First off, this review is not really for Professor Stone since although he was my instructor, the class was the same for everyone no matter who they officially had as a professor. Lectures were alternated between the three instructors this semester and posted online. For the lectures, I would say Basit's were the best, then Stone, then Graham. For who was the most responsive via email, I would say Basit because Stone never replied to an email I sent him, but it wasn't a big deal because I could've gone to his office hours to ask him directly.

The content of this course is learning java and I would say the course was not overly difficult if you're a CS major or already know other languages. There were weekly collab quizzes worth 10% of your grade that had 10 questions each and you were given 30 minutes for. The later quizzes started to get harder, but I would say it is very doable to average 8-9/10. Your lowest quiz will get dropped. You also have one lab activity due per lecture based on what you learned in that lecture. These are worth 15% of your grade and the lowest 2 will be dropped. Each one took less than an hour on average and they were due Wednesday night each week. Homework, due Friday nights is worth 30% of your grade. We had 9 homeworks this semester and took between one and 5 hours I would say. I checked over my assignments quickly during office hours and it was easy to ask for help if you get stuck. The homeworks are auto-graded on Webcat (assuming it works for the assignments). The hardest parts of the class are the homework and then the two midterms (10% each) and the final (25%).

The exams have multiple choice and coding questions. I found the multiple choice to be easier on every exam. For the first exam, many people had technical difficulties for the coding question because they had you import files and a database and it was kind of a mess so they gave a curve for some of the points back, but it was not as many points as many people should have gotten since their code was correct and something out of their control impacted them. For test 2, the coding wasn't that hard and many people got 100%. For the final, the coding wasn't super hard and most people did pretty well on it.

Overall, good class, if you have to take it for your major, don't stress about it. If you want to learn java basics, this class is also good for that. Try to get Stone if you can. Start assignments early - office hours can get busy if you're stuck on the last day.

Technically, this semester we had 3 professors teaching us - Stone, Basit, and Graham. Basit is definitely the best professor to take it with, then Stone, then Graham. I liked how the class was structured in terms of lectures, homeworks, and labs. If you did the homeworks and watched the lectures you would be fine on the exams. It was open-note for us which made is so helped make the semester less stressful. I really enjoyed the concepts I learned, and feel more confident in Java. The TAs are also pretty helpful, but I wasn't a fan of the head TA since he was kinda condescending when I met him.

#tCF2020

I had java experience so the class was a breeze. There was reading but I never read. I sometimes review the lecture videos. Everything is pretty much open notes cause of zoom university. Professor Stone is super chill, he will always help, don't hesitate to reach out to him. DONT FORGET WEEKEND QUIZZES.

Stone wasn't.... bad per se; it's just that you can tell he wasn't trained to be a professor (although I've had teachers in high school that were actually bad, so there is no comparison for that) because yes, he does essentially read off his slides, and he doesn't explain the really complex or interesting concepts very well, and he asks the same several questions to the class during his lectures (like the classic why do you use the .equals() method to compare strings and not == or the one about the principle of substitution for parent and child classes), which, I guess teaches me a couple (2) things in the realm of computer science. I also should have done better on the second exam but knowingly didn't study a topic that was on the topics list, and then convinced myself it was small enough that it wouldn't be on there, but I should let bygones be bygones. The homework isn't actually challenging in the sense that you feel entirely lost going into them, but they take a long time to figure out (at least for a pleb like me and definitely longer to code than the 1110 assignments), and I always started them around the day they were due because I'm a chronic procrastinator, except for the GUI one because I absolutely knew that one would take me forever. Anyway, I'm getting off-track, but I think I'd recommend Basit over Stone, but Stone isn't the worst. He is really nice like other people have said, and I think it's actually really cool that he has a software dev job while he's a professor on the side, but it might have been a better choice for him to teach a class that's kind of integrated with that work experience vs. a beginner's Java class. Also, the paper textbook was not that helpful and not actually required for any assignments, and unless you're completely certain you're going to read it/keep up with it, then don't buy it, especially since there's another free PDF-based digital text they use in the class, and coding is just something that is/should be free to self-teach online (which it... basically is). I also felt like the tests weren't comprehensive or in-depth; they were on Collab and the multiple choice section often felt like it was skimming the surface. While studying for the final, I kind of went down a rabbit-hole of looking up stuff on GeeksforGeeks and Stack Overflow and then realized how much I actually didn't understand to which I'd say just sticking to the content on the professors' slides is probably enough.

Professor Stone is a great dude and knows computer science, but he's just not a good lecturer. He pretty much just reads directly off the slides. You don't need to go to class, just read the slides and do the in class activity each day that class happens(these are due at 11:59 PM each day lecture happens). The exams are straightforward and fair. Some of the homeworks can take a lot of time but they aren't difficult, just tedious.

I took CS 2110 (Software Development Methods) with Professor Stone fall 2018. As far Prof. Stone himself is concerned, he’s a nice man but a little clueless sometimes. He actually does know his stuff quite well; he’s just not a very good lecturer. I completely stopped going to lecture about a month into the semester (and still ended up with an A+, which just goes to show that Prof. Stone does not add much value). If you don’t mind teaching yourself this course, it doesn’t matter which professor you have. If you want someone who will give good lectures, try to go for Basit or Hott.
As far as the class goes, 2110 is not difficult--especially if you already have even a little experience with Java. The class basically comprehensively covers Java from start to finish, including a lot of discussion about data storage types towards the end of the semester. There is a lab section every week that you do need to attend (except you can skip 1 time per semester).

Professor Stone is awesome! While his lecture slides weren't too helpful, he asks the class questions that make sure you understand the material. Sometimes he goes through the material really fast, so you definitely want to go back and review the topics covered in class. As for the class itself, I thought it was designed really well in that the homework assignments taught you a lot of the material. HW, labs, and in-class participation are 55% of your grade already, so if you put in the work then you should do well in the class.

I was compelled to write this review because I thought that the review he has is too harsh. Stone is probably one the sweetest professors, very likable and he tries really hard to help you when you have questions. I do think his teaching style is lacking but I don't find it completely distracting, and I never felt that I was falling behind the other classes. I will also say that I think he's improved in the time that I've known him over the course of the semester. Teaching isn't his first profession so I think he's just figuring out his style. Anyways, some advice if you take it with Stone is to make sure to ask questions when you're confused (he loves when people participate) and sit close to the front as he is more likely to come to help you during in-class assignments. Also, If you find his slides to be pretty bare-bones (and they sometimes are!), use Basit's slides to reiterate what you've learned. The class itself is a lot of fun and you learn a lot, if you liked 1110 you'll like this class.

Also, do not let the first few weeks freak you out. There is a learning curve going from Python to Java and it can get overwhelming but go to the Python to Java review session and just stick with it, it gets so much better.

So, Professor Stone is a pretty nice guy. He tries really hard to be friendly. The problem is that he's not that great at teaching. Last semester I only had him for a few weeks before switching to another professor, but by then, I was so far behind on the basics that I ended up having to drop the class. The problem is that in the first class he even said this isn't his full-time job. He even filled in for our professor once this semester and I felt like he was spending more time trying to figure out how to display everything on the projector more than he was teaching. I'm taking it again this semester and can already see a massive improvement from where I was last semester. I'm not saying it's impossible to pass the class by any means with him, you're just going to have to work a lot harder.