New review for CPSC 418 by le chat

[csssbot]

Honestly really cool topics. There's a little bit for everyone : languages like C and Erlang, low level optimization (caches, registers, etc.), profiling, CUDA, etc. There are some typos / bugs in assignments; however, it's usually pretty minor.

The assignments are interesting, but do take a bit of time, and the grades come out very slowly. By the time of the exam we only had 3 homework (out of 6 and lots of bonus assignments) grades released. Mark is pretty funny and is clearly passionate.

I would say however that allowing AI during exams is very pay-to-win. For example, people with the latest paid models (which are months ahead of the free ones) can get more accurate answers faster. And it's not like exams are worth nothing; combined, they make up 65% of your grade. I like the idea of open book exams, but I think an improvement would be banning AI usage. Just something to keep in mind if you take the course.

Difficulty: 2.5/5
Quality: 3.5/5
le chat, Apr 22 2026, course taken during 2025W2

View YAML for new review

  - author: le chat
    authorLink: 
    date: 2026-04-22
    review: |
      Honestly really cool topics. There's a little bit for everyone : languages like C and Erlang, low level optimization (caches, registers, etc.), profiling, CUDA, etc. There are some typos / bugs in assignments; however, it's usually pretty minor.
  The assignments are interesting, but do take a bit of time, and the grades come out very slowly. By the time of the exam we only had 3 homework (out of 6 and lots of bonus assignments) grades released. Mark is pretty funny and is clearly passionate.
  
  I would say however that allowing AI during exams is very pay-to-win. For example, people with the latest paid models (which are months ahead of the free ones) can get more accurate answers faster. And it's not like exams are worth nothing; combined, they make up 65% of your grade. I like the idea of open book exams, but I think an improvement would be banning AI usage. Just something to keep in mind if you take the course.
difficulty: 2.5
quality: 3.5
sessionTaken: 2025W2

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