Reviews of professor Alley Stoughton

Rating: 2.0/5, difficulty: 5.0/5
Meh prof, but the whole field of Formal Languages is such a pain. As such, having a "meh" prof just doesn't cut it. Her syllabus is her own insipid book (which she's been writing since 2012), and her programming assignments revolve around an even more tedious language, Forlan. The combination will make you cry yourself to sleep every night.

Rating: 4.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
Being subjective: 1. This is a conceptual course with lots of math. You will also use a programming language written by the professor to do assignments. All of these make it a hard one. 2. Professor is really helpful and responsive. She is always willing to sit down and answer your questions step by step. Do utilize her help if you are taking it.

Rating: 1.0/5, difficulty: 5.0/5
To be fair, the subject of formal language theories is a tedious one, but her teaching made it so much worse(that's putting it mildly). In terms of grading, she even deducted points from an otherwise perfectly valid proof because she didn't like the order of the two terms in an equality expression. I'll let you interpret that however you want.

Rating: 5.0/5, difficulty: 3.0/5
This course put equal emphasis on abstract thinking and practical experiment. The foundation of this class is set theory and then extend to various topics in this course. Assignments are helpful for sharpening up logical reasoning. Programming are written in Forlan(SML + useful extensions). The key is to learn functional programming.

Rating: 5.0/5, difficulty: 3.0/5
Awesome class! Everything is very clear, starting from proofs and ending with grading criteria. And Alley is a great professor. Her lectures have a good structure and are supported by the book. She adjusts her pace according to the audience. Recommend it to anyone who is ready to work, have fun and get a grade they were working for.

Rating: 5.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
Alley is always accessible in and out of class, and cares about her students' success. The assignments give you a deep understanding of the course material, and help you learn to write much sharper proofs. The intersection between functional programming and automata theory made this course truly unique. Great class, excellent professor!