Beginners beware. The learning curve is harsh and the class is demotivating. I wouldn't say don't take the class, but I do recommend you steel yourself.

This is no easy introductory class especially if you take it with this guy, unless you have experience in programming His homework are ridiculously tough and always go beyond what were covered in lectures, requiring an absurd amount of time. The distribution of the class materials is also uneven. It started off so simple in the first few weeks but then the workload and class materials grew exponentially towards the end. The time given for the mini midterms were also nowhere near enough and the instructions can be unclear at times. This class stressed me out countless times. Would really NOT recommend taking it.

You will not finish the quizzes after the third one. They're really hard as are the exams. If you don't have experience in programming before coming into this class, you probably won't get higher than a B-. This class is really hard. Don't think it will be an easy intro class.

Mike is an excellent professor. Sure, he's pretty strict at times and he will take it very seriously if you try to scribble a few words the moment he calls time on a quiz, mid-term or final. He will not hesitate to give you a zero on the quiz if he catches you writing after the time is up.

That being said though, Mike is also extremely helpful in many ways. He constantly scours the CCLE forums and makes it a point to answer every single one of his students' questions. It's probably the best way to seek clarification. Some of my friends have said that going to his office hours may not help much because of the lack of hands-on that you get on the computer, and he might find it difficult to explain concepts to you without the help of the actual computer.

Mike is pretty entertaining during lecture, showing us cute videos and pictures of cats. His mid-terms and finals are challenging, though they definitely can be done. Just remember to skip the portions where he talks about his Canadian culture and cats because it would be a waste of time to read during an exam.

One thing that he does is group exams so that everyone has a chance to get better grades by redoing each exam in teams, which actually helps pull up our grades by a WHOLE LOT (especially if you have a friend who is a computer whiz in the same class as you). He doesn't have extra credit, but it isn't necessary because he gives a very high percentage on participation and homework so that all you have to do is put in the effort and learn consistently, and you should be able to get a good grade!

Definitely recommend this professor as he is patient enough to slowly explain difficult concepts in lectures and in the PIC LAB! I really enjoyed his course!

He is the kind of professor that you would deeply remember even you graduated, a kind of professor that would appear in your nightmare even you have left college for years. His lectures are super dry but loaded, trying to cram an intense load of concepts in your brain. He doesn't really care about the correctness and functionality of the program compared to rather meaningless syntax requirements. He will heavily punish you if you violated his requirements. Programming is torture in his class. RUN!

Terrible professor, programs can work 100% (including edge cases & commenting), and you will get C's if coding syntax isn't 100% correct. His monotone voice is far superior for sleeping than learning. Took online and would not recommend him to anyone.

This was the hardest class I have ever taken in my life. I ended up dropping it week 8 because i was going to fail it. i constantly got low scores on the homeworks even if the code functioned almost perfectly. my friend who has been a cs major for years couldn't figure out the weekly homeworks. For an intro class, this course was so beyond unreasonable. I think the professor enjoys feeling powerful and authoritarian while assigning homeworks that are nearly impossible. He's super condescending and expects you to understand things perfectly after explaining it once. Lectures are boring and monotone. He doesn't give enough examples that actually explain the concepts. Instead, he reads off of plain slides. TAKE THIS CLASS WITH LITERALLY ANYONE ELSE. I didn't learn a single thing besides how to cry myself to sleep without my roommate hearing.

Professor Lindstrom is great! No midterms and the final is only 5% of this class. Homework is most part of this course, which is reasonable. Work hard and you will learn a lot

This class was not it. I had experience in C++ before and still found the class miserable. A 95 is required for an A, so not great for the GPA, but I do believe the lower brackets might curve nicer.
There's a midterm and a final worth like 5% of your grade, 24 hours to complete, and usually taken from the end of the slides.
The older reviews are correct, the homework takes forever to complete(~10-15 hours/week according to a poll of class). If you want to succeed you need to start assignments early, use clues from TA's to start, and attend lots of office hours.
Also do not plagiarize! He's crazy about honor and cheating and will ruin your academic life.
Overall, you can get an ok grade if you put most of your time into it, but it's likely the other professors are easier for 10A.

TLDR: Do not take this class unless you want to have a breakdown in Boelter at least once a week. If you have to like I did at least do NOT take it with Mike Lindstrom. This class is a special kind of hell.

The class consists of one homework each week, a midterm, and a final. The homework seems easy the first couple weeks but do NOT underestimate the learning curve come around week 4/5. Make sure to get full points on the first couple of homeworks and if you get points off clarify why and try to get points back. I got a 5/20 on one homework because I forgot to change the name of the header file in my code and it technically didn't compile. 2 letters cost me 75% of that homework so be very careful with them. Go to office hours, my TA was Sam and she was super patient and helpful when I had questions. If you still need help on top of that there are fraternity chapters that offer free tutoring. There are three different chapters in Boelter and Boelter Hall that can help you, go there and say you need help with C++ and there's usually someone there that knows enough to help get you through the homework. The midterm and final are ridiculously hard. The average for the midterm was around 50% and the average for the final was 39%. You only have 50 minutes for the midterm which is multiple multiple-choice, code correcting, and code writing. On top of that Mike grades ridiculously harshly and with no remorse. People who submitted a re-grade for their midterm later hoping to get points back on a question usually lost points. The final turned out to be online for us considering the early end of the winter quarter. Although the exam was 24 hours online, open note, and open web the average was still only 39%. I submitted my exam and got an exam about an hour after it was due that my exam was somehow in a format that couldn't be opened by my TA. I quickly emailed her my exam again asking why the first submission wasn't working and she couldn't tell me why which is weird considering that was the same format I submitted my homework. Although, the copy I emailed my TA worked and I spent hours on the exam Mike gave me a 0 because the first copy I submitted wasn't working and the second one was technically late. Literally less than an hour late and only because the first copy wasn't opening right for a reason no one could explain. Mike refused to accept my exam even though I don't know why he thinks I would go through all that just to cheat an extra 50 minutes on a 24-hour exam. Mike doesn't care about helping the students who don't have prior experience or a knack for coding. His whole class is structured to weed out the very best and praise them, while not bothering with those struggling. It is ridiculous for an introductory class.