<p>I’m currently taking the class, and yes, it is very difficult. I would say the hardest part about it isn’t learning the actual concepts of data structures, but the amount of material covered and the amount of work. Before going into the class (took 5J and 11 instead of 12A), I had no idea that the C printf() function (a clone exists in the Java library) even existed (we’d been using System.out.print). Looking at Mackey’s example code for the first time scared the crap out of me because it seemed so abstract. So you should definitely look it up [Formatter</a> (Java 2 Platform SE 5.0)](<a href=“JDK 20 Documentation - Home”>Formatter (Java 2 Platform SE 5.0))</p>
<p>Although the first labs focus on getting familiar with Unix, you might wanna start learning your way around the command line (using tcsh or bash) earlier than that, so you can focus on the conceptual stuff.</p>
<p>C gets introduced about a third of the way into the quarter, but I wouldn’t worry about trying to learn it before you get into the class, since the professor does a good job of pointing out the differences between Java and C, and common mistakes that programmers make.</p>
<p>Good luck</p>