Thought I might as well start this since no one else has yet.
Do you guys have any summer homework? Any prior programming experience? For me, no to both. I’m planning on studying a bit of the material for the course soon, though. I don’t start school until August 29th.
No to both as well! I’ve been doing a little bit of review before I start but my friend took it last year and said that you don’t need any prior knowledge and the class is pretty easy, so I’m not really worried.
@pastamaker Neither am I. I get my textbooks in about a week, so I’ll just use mine to skim over the first unit before I actually start. I also just got done volunteering at a coding summer camp. I got quite a bit of practice with an online programming website called StarLogo Nova, so I’ve gained some insight as to how exactly programs work and what functions are normally used.
Personally, I feel that AP Computer Science A was an absolute joke. The way our teacher taught it was very good and everything, but it doesn’t actually teach you anything fun with Java, i.e. serious game development with Applets, and threads and such. Some teachers may go into detail about that but it’s not tested on. I just wish it was more focused on that instead of repetitive and boring things like the three labs. I thought they were jokes and kind of pointless. Either way, you don’t need any kind of programming experience to take it, just some math and good analytical thinking. You should know how to power on a computer and move the mouse and type though; that’s a prerequisite. Since the new AP Computer Science Principles course is out this year, I’m taking it, though it’s a little disappointing since it’s not like a course that can lead from APCSA (something like APCSB perhaps?), it’s just a general overview of Computer Science and a tiny section of pseudo code and stuff. Kind of boring to me. Anyways, back to APCSA, I didn’t have any summer assignments or really any homework because I did all the stuff in class, but it varies from student to student. We had a textbook but I never read it (I actually BOUGHT the textbook from B&N), so yeah. Anyways, it’s a fun and easy course, though for the AP exam, the FRQs can either be really easy or extremely difficult. The 2016 FRQs were extremely arduous to me but I still got a 4.
I loved this class last year! My main suggestion: PRACTICE CODING!! The FRQs are all code. I took the course online, through which every single assignment was writing a full program, so this practice helped me to make a 5 on the exam. If I hadn’t done multiple programs every weeks, I would have surely failed. Also, when the time comes, the Barron’s prep book works like a charm 
Best of luck, everyone! I hope you enjoy the class as much as I did!