Professor: Krishnamurthi Course format: Language	Number of respondents: 20 Total Enrollment: 32
Class Composition: Froshs: 0 Sophs: 1 Jrs: 9 Srs: 10 Concs: 19 Non-Concs: 0 Don't Know: 1

Instructor Average: 1.39 Course Average: 1.46

If you have ever wanted to learn about the building blocks of today and tomorrow's programming language, then you would definitely be interested in "Introduction to Programming Languages." The course includes topics such as how languages are written and used, the role of programming languages in solving problems, and the power of different language features. The professor's goals included giving students the tools to build their own language, as well as to analyze and categorize languages. Knowledge of discrete math is helpful. Prerequisites for this course include CS22, CS 31, and CS51.

Professor Krishnamurthi was generally an effective teacher. He was able to make the lectures exciting and interesting. However, respondents were split about whether or not he took their learning needs and interests into account. Overall, the professor was very concerned about whether or not the students understood the material and constantly asked for questions as well as posed questions to the class himself. In terms of the TAs, some respondents commented that there were not enough TA hours and that they were not very helpful.

Almost all of the respondents praised the lecture slides, the only reading material for this course, as being excellent aides in this course. For this course, students were assigned seven programming assignments or problem sets, three essays, a take-home midterm, and a take-home final. Many students commented on the lack of clarity of the homework assignments, which often led to confusion and frustration. Also, the essays did not seem to contribute much to the course. Students found the late policy to be a little bit difficult; one could only hand in assignments late with an extension, and even in that case one lost credit.

In general, students spend between five and ten hours a week on work outside class. It was described as a hard course but worth the effort because of the professor's enthusiasm. Also, some class members mentioned that this course is much more thorough than the term "introduction" implies. All in all, respondents recommended this course to other students, but warn that it can be difficult and time consuming -- not unlike other CS courses.

View CS/0173 in the Brown Online Course Announcement.