Last term (2014W2, or Jan-Apr 2015), I had the opportunity to be a teaching assistant (henceforth abbreviated as TA) for CPSC 210: "Software Construction", which is part of UBC's CPSC software engineering stream. I've already reviewed 210 as a student in an earlier blog post; instead, this blog post will be somewhat different than my regular course reviews, being written from the perspective of a TA rather than a student in CPSC 210. There are a number of blogs out there that offer reviews of various UBC courses, but none that talk about what it's like to be a TA …

Here's my review for CPSC 110, 121, and 210, which I took in my 1st year as a UBC Science student, doing a major in computer science.

CPSC 110:

In a nutshell: [ Language: Racket ] - [ IDE: DrRacket ] - [ Prereqs: none ] - [ CPSC 110 Website ]

"Bad programming is easy. Idiots can learn it in 21 days, even if they are Dummies." - How to Design Programs, 2nd Edition

This is an introductory computer science course (I know, I'm stating the obvious here), designed to teach students to design. In fact, the textbook you'll be using is entitled "How to Design Programs", a.k.a. HtDP …