He covers a lot of material and assignments can be lengthy, but he knows his stuff. His class was worth the effort.

Peter is a terrific guy! He was actually more helpful to me outside of the scope of the class! Although I'm graduating, I hope to keep in contact with him.

Look, yes, the course is required for upper level CS. Here's why the above :-( guy is an idiot: if you're a CS major, you ought to be able to teach *yourself* DS anyway. The point of the class is for a teacher to show you the tangents-- the things you wouldn't learn on your own. If you can't do search trees on your own, get out of this major.

Classes weren't terribly organized but they were fun. Peter keeps it real...as long as you're willing to talk with him as a person, not just as a teacher, you'll get more than enough help with your course issues. ....and what can I say? the man writes a mean final!

Peter's a great teacher. He'll put in his best effort to make sure you go back without any unanswered questions if you approach him. Peter is not the type who will presumably tell you what is good and what is not. Rather, learning is exploration, and Peter is the type of teacher who is willing to explore and journey with you.

The more you get to know him, the more it becomes apparent that he really likes working with students. He likes to challenge students too... but it's worth it.

Always willing to help, he answers questions clearly. His lectures are insightful, thorough, and easy to understand. Peter is vocal about his beliefs about life, computing, and politics, which makes the class spicy and interesting. The only complaint about the class is numerous issues with homework submission and TAs unwillingness to help.

The material for this class is pretty simple, and not very interesting. On the other hand, the assignments were extraordinarily long. DO NOT take this class during a busy semester.

Extremely clear, good communicator, responds quickly and usefully to questions. He assigns a lot of homework, but it's not difficult if you've prepared properly.

He is a great professor, who is EXTREMELY helpful. Each homework assignment was challenging but he was always available through office hours and email for help. Eventhough class was 2.5 hours, it flew by everyday.

I wanted to take a Java class, and I believe his class was pretty good. The homeworks usually required you to know what he taught you in class. Peter did tend to go into CS theory more than it was useful to us, and probably could have spent more time explaining various Java data structures and programming syntax to us instead.

great professor. love his character. very funny guy. i will miss everything about that class...except for the extremely long hw assignments.

Many people complained about the difficult assignments, but they were well designed and thought out. Programming computers is hard work, and not for everyone. Occasionally, he was not prepared for class and confused major points. Generally, his explanations were lucid. He was always happy to chat after class, and really cares about his students.

Homework assignments sometimes took many hours, so make sure you have the time/dedication to do a lot of programming. Coding done in class is posted online, so not much need to take notes. Go to class and read the book and you'll be fine.

as others have said some of the homework was quite involved, but you learn a lot if you stick with it. ways willing to answer questions and very accessible. funny guy, who else dresses up as castro?

Very interesting and useful set of assignments. The lectures are very dynamic.

Peter kept Senior Design a fairly laid back class and always encouraged in-class discourse and self improvement. He also introduced several thought provoking topics related to CS that shed some light on the man, the mystery, Peter Froehlich.

Peter was organized—very structured in terms of lectures, projects, and exams. For the most part, the lectures were excellent. A few times he left us confused and googling. The projects and exams were challenging, but rewarding. My grade in the class was emailed almost daily… He is flexible, and open to ideas on changing the course.

The course was a little harder for me and it was a heavy work. It needs a lot of prerequisite knowledge other than Java. I was messed up for the semester.

Peter's a really interesting guy. Sometimes he can be a little confusing, but he really makes an effort.

His class was incredibly in depth and time consuming; the projects were very arduous and were not for one who was not committed to the subject. Other than that, it was a great class. I learned a lot, almost entirely because of the in-depth nature of the assignments.

He's...a good teacher...yeah

Class was fun and we had many interesting discussions

Exactly what a 300 level course should be. Interesting, clear, and challenging.

The best things about Peter are his 24/7 support on the mailing list and his picture on his jhu home page.

Intermediate Programming was a lot of work...but it was all worth it in the end. I learned sooo much. Prof Froehlich is def a quirky and unique character, which made the class a lot of fun. Also, he was great about responding to e-mails when you asked questions and pretty helpful during office hours. Overall, really enjoyed the class

Awesome!

Great teacher. Assignments are challenging but fun, Class time is filled with interesting knowledge. Although the office hours aren't really helpful, his presence on his mailing list is great. Whoever gets this professor is very lucky to have him and is going to enjoy a great year. Can my grade be bumped up half a letter now? =p

So I am posting this comment about 5 years down the line from when he was teaching at UCR. I enrolled in almost every course that Peter taught. He is truly one of the best instructors that I've had. No instructor I have ever had has been more engaged with helping his students than Peter. Truly my most memorable instructor.

Possibly the best programming class I have taken. You will do well in this class if you are intelligent and enjoy coding. Peter will give you an excellent idea of the language's strengths and weaknesses. The best part of the course were the assignments - challenging and involving at the same time. Highly recommended.

Overall great professor. Pays much attention to detail, and emphasizes key misunderstandings appropriately. Grading sometimes seems harsh, but overall the class was very beneficial. Only suggestion I'd make is to consider revising the grading policy to encourage more well-designed, clean code than simply "whatever works."

Excellent professor overall. His class is a goodly amount of work, but you will learn how to better code C/C++. Prior programming experience is a must.

Fairly knowledgable but lectures didnt help much

Great job at explaining the subtleties of the languages covered. Very knowledgeable. Made you work to get the knowledge, the best way. Was fair in grading and available for help in office hours

Froehlich rocks my world. One of the most useful and 'fun' (in that sadistic/masochistic kinda way) courses I've had the pleasure of taking. Do not take unless you have a legit interest in learning how to code, else it will destroy your soul, your will to live your very being.

I actually meant to put very helpful

The class is easy if you have a lot of time on your hands. Essentially, plan on spending up to 20 hours a week on the projects. You will learn the material at the cost of your GPA.

I only took this class because it was a requirement for my major. This class is difficult, but learning something totally foreign to you normally is. Froehlich will provide all the assistance you ask for. Though difficult and time consuming, I really feel like I'm learning something in this class rather than just obtaining a grade. Highly recommend

Perfect professor for this course -- to learn C/C++ really well, what you need is plenty of practice. I miss the weekly programming assignments now =/ The lecture is basically a series of code examples (including ones to demonstrate interesting/unexpected examples). If you want to really learn to program, take one of his courses. =D

Awesome professor. This is my second class with him. If you want to learn the material, you will take a class with Peter. Beware, though, YOU WILL WORK!!! His courses always require a ton of time, but they are well worth it. He is also very helpful. He is my favorite professor by far. -RD

-Extremely thorough lecturer. -The assignments are very relevant and interesting, but at least a quarter of them take 10-20 hours. -I have never learned so much from one teacher. -Expect to work extremely hard, but the work pays off: you will have a great understanding of programming C/C++ after this class.

Overall an excellent class that introduces you to programming at various layers of an Operating System. Assignments were very good and the class focuses more on understanding from the code than books.It is an excellent approach as it removes all fears from your mind and after the class you feel confident to dive into OS code independently

Gives great assignments

This class was a lot of fun, but beware - there is a LOT of work involved. Only take this class if you are really interested in CS. Peter did a great job teaching this course, and I feel like I now have a really thorough understanding of C through all the crazy assignments we did.

helpful but you'll learn most during the assignments

Peter's a great professor, take his courses. All of them

Great course! Awesome professor! Highly recommend this!

really great lecturer. Easily accessible through piazza and really good TAs help you get the work done. You will need to put in many hours per assignment, but the notes PDF is a great guide.

Great professor. Weird curve but most will pass. Plan for an assignment every week!

Requires you to put in effort, but very rewarding if you do.

I enjoyed his sense of humor, everyone listened to him, and I appreciated the feedback available using Piazza

Lots of work and self learning. Of course, then you learn a lot.

He makes it easy to learn if you are coding for the first time.

Trust me, if you really want to learn CS, if you want to be challenged, you neeeed to take this man's class! He won't make it easy, but that's the point isn't it - to actually learn. He's an amazing lecturer, and probably the only professor I've ever had, who had the courage to program live, IN CLASS. You learn a tonne from just watching!

Peter was far and away my favorite professor at Hopkins; I purposefully took 3+ classes with him. Be ready to work, but if you bust your tail, do all of the assignments, & understand the material you are guaranteed an A. Tests don't really matter, assignments do. He is always there for extra help, and incredibly knowledgeable on the subject matter.

If you really want to learn Compilers, you have to teach yourself, but Peter provides the structure to do so. The assignments are well-paced and structured so you learn the important concepts, and at the end of the class he add some bonus sections. Expect to do a lot of programming, but if you do your work, Peter is not a harsh grader.

Peter is a fantastic professor. This course provided the foundation for my programming and engineering learning, and thus my career to date. I strongly recommend students take classes with Peter. Take the course seriously, and you will get a lot out of it.

This course is based on really specific material - programming Unix systems, but the skills learned are broadly applicable within CS. This is also a great preparation course for the OS course. This course gave me a fundamental understanding of working in Unix, which has also been applicable to other OSes.

Nearly ten years since I first took Peter's class, I still look back at it as the first time I was challenged to produce professional quality (or as close as I could manage at the time) code. Peter's assignments are *hard*, but he takes time to make them interesting and works with you throughout the assignment offering clarifications, advice, etc.

Compilers was great. Fun course, difficult but I learned a lot. :D

Homework assignments, though numerous, are useful and even a bit challenging at times (in a good sense). Our class did not get to the 10th assignment, but this was out of Peter's control. He is very good about providing clear homework directions. Exams are a breeze since most questions are straight from the backtests (which he provides).

Peter is an awesome professor.

Great and knowledgeable professor. Exams are pretty easy with his backtests being a really good indicator of what to expect. Assignments are long and arduous but doable. Pretty clear grading expectations, its just hard. Only complaint is that he isn't the most approachable guy both in person and online. Learned a lot from Peter regardless.

Hardest class I've taken thus far. Lectures were insightful and directly helped you on the homework if you paid attention. He comes off angry when answering questions, but that's normally him trying to understand your question. Also, don't ask dumb questions. If you can google it easily, do that.

Took his data structure course. Although his grading is tough, Dr. Froehlich gives really good lectures, clear homework instructions and helpful feedbacks.