Mostly theory and very little programming. The first part of the course is discrete math and basically just an extension of MATH 122, while the middle is mostly a repeat of CSC 115 with the data structures. It definitely increases in difficulty at the end.

Attendance is mandatory if you have no background in Java. The assignments and labs start very easy if you have already taken C at uvic, or another coding class, but they get significantly harder at the end. The midterms / all tests are very theory based as well as coding, so make sure you not only understand how to code but how the theory of tracing and linked lists ect. all works. Anthony is a very fair prof who does a very good job of explaining all the concepts, he usually replies pretty fast to any questions you might have also. I would recommend stopping buy his early office hours as It seemed he tended to remember people very easily who put themselves in close contact with him.

Overall the class is not awful, but make sure you really keep up after first midterm when it really starts to pick up

The course is designed to teach coding from the ground up, so previous coding experience is completely unnecessary. As someone with some coding experience, the first week or two were somewhat boring, but skipping lectures is a very bad idea since the course builds on itself. Anthony had pre-lecture quizzes which were very easy if you watched his videos, and not much more difficult if you didn't. Labs weren't very complicated either and were a fairly good example of what kinds of questions you could expect on an exam. The assignments were somewhat more difficult, but generally very manageable. There were a couple that took a lot more time than some of the others, but Anthony and the TAs were very willing to provide help. Anthony's exams were pretty easy, although they are on paper, so if yo...read more

The course covers C, which was very interesting to learn about and will hopefully be useful in the future.

Anthony is an amazing prof. His pre-lecture videos were short and to the point, and his lectures covered everything so clearly I was never lost. He spent lots of time in lectures just walking around and giving students one-on-one help with his examples if they were stuck. He was friendly and super helpful in office hours and easy to contact on Microsoft Teams pretty much whenever.

Office hours are not scary. Go to them if you're stuck, that's why they're there.