My advisor wasn't much help as to which set I should take. I have no programming experience whatsoever. So my question is: Should I take Comp Sci 53/54 this spring, or is 74/78 more practical? The descriptions of the courses on Joe'ss are quite vague. I'm a mech eng major (or i will be after freshmen engineering). Thanks guys.

74/78 should be taken if you plan on them being your last programming courses. 53/54 are usually prerequisites for higher-level comp sci courses. 53/54 cover everything covered in 74/78 and a little more. Most comp sci's and comp. e's usually take 53/54. Your best bet would be to look at the courses you are going to need to take farther down the line, and see if any of them require any programming prerequisites.

as I recall, 53/54 is C++ for Believers, 74/78 is C++ for non-Believers.
As far as differences, I took 73/77, so I have no idea. But I would be willing to bet that 74/78 is the easier class.

74/78 is easier, 53/54 is required if you wan to take more programming courses. Usually 74/78 is taken by engineers, who don't need anything else, and 53/54 is taken by CS/CSE/IST majors.

Both courses are designed as an introduction to C++, so neither should be too difficult. I'd go with 53/54 if you have an actual interest in programming, or 74/78 if you want more of the "engineers approach" to programming.

74/78 is a joke. by far the easiest class ive taken here yet... plus you get mentis for it. that always make class more interesting.. or non-existent. he cancelled our class alot.

Yes 74/78 is rediculously easy. I only went to class like twice aside from tests and got an A. Actually I missed a test once and went in later and made it up.

As a mech E you can take a cmp sci elective instead of the math/stat elective. So if you like programming at all that is the way to go. Like I said i took 74/78 and now I am stuck with taking linear algebra.

Cs 53 is ok. Its not too demanding or all that difficult but you have to study and put a good deal of work into the class. I work at least as much in Cs 53 as I did in calc 1 and 2 if that helps with comparison. Don't take 53 if you don't care about programming, its really a primer for more advanced classes.

I took 74/78, thought it was really easy, and don't regret it with the math/stat elective (I'm an aero). I'll say, though, if you like programming, def take 53/54