Calendar

Week 1

Mon Jan 19

No class, MLK day

Wed Jan 21

Introduction: Mandatory reading: the syllabus

Week 2

Mon Jan 26

~~LLM Code Generation: Modifying an Existing Codebase~~ Class is cancelled (snow day), in-class activity is homework instead. Check your email for activity instructions.: Mandatory reading: Willison’s 2025: The year in LLMs

Before class on Jan 28

Reflection essay on experience w/ LLM code generation due

Wed Jan 28

LLM Code Generation: Discussion: No reading

Week 3

Mon Feb 2

Requirements Engineering: User Discovery Lab

Mandatory reading: Synthetic Users: If, When, and How to Use AI-Generated “Research”

Background reading: The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick. (Note: this is a book; it costs $10. You’re not required to read this, but you should be familiar with the ideas in it before class.)

Special topics reading: Analysis of LLMs vs Human Experts in Requirements Engineering

Mon Feb 2

Project team declaration due

Wed Feb 4

Requirements Engineering: Creating Effective User Stories: Background reading: INVEST in Good Stories, and SMART Tasks
Special topics reading: When Prompts Go Wrong: Evaluating Code Model Robustness to Ambiguous, Contradictory, and Incomplete Task Descriptions

Week 4

Sun Feb 8

Project requirements doc due

Mon Feb 9

Requirements Engineering: Creating Dev Specs

Mandatory reading: Development Spec Guidelines

Background reading: How To Be A Program Manager and Design Docs at Google

Special topics reading: Aligning Requirement for Large Language Model’s Code Generation

Before class Feb 11

Reflection essay on requirements gathering w/ LLMs due

Wed Feb 11

Requirements Engineering: Discussion: No reading

Week 5

Sun Feb 15

Project specification doc due

Mon Feb 16

Frontend: Introduction: Mandatory reading: Vibing a Non-Trivial Ghostty Feature
Special topics reading: Inside Out: Uncovering How Comment Internalization Steers LLMs for Better or Worse

Wed Feb 18

Frontend: Creating the UI Code: Mandatory Reading: How AI assistance impacts the formation of coding skills (this isn’t directly related to the lecture content, but I think everyone should read it)

Week 6

Mon Feb 23

~~Frontend: Creating UI Behaviors~~ Class cancelled (snow). In-class activity instead.: Mandatory reading: Good Vibrations? A Qualitative Study of Co-Creation, Communication, Flow, and Trust in Vibe Coding

Before class on Feb 25

Reflection essay on LLMs for frontend dev due

Wed Feb 25

~~Frontend: Discussion~~ Class cancelled (snow). Remote demos instead.: No reading

Week 7

Sun Mar 1

Project frontend code initial submission due

Mon Mar 2

Frontend: Discussion: Special topics reading: A Causal Perspective on Measuring, Explaining and Mitigating Smells in LLM-Generated Code

Wed Mar 4

Backend: Coding Lab: Special topics reading: Smoke and Mirrors: Jailbreaking LLM-based Code Generation via Implicit Malicious Prompts

Week 8

Mon Mar 9

Backend: Data and Notifications: Special topics reading: From Code to Correctness: Closing the Last Mile of Code Generation with Hierarchical Debugging

Before class on Mar 11

Reflection essay on LLMs for backend dev due

Wed Mar 11

Backend: Discussion: No reading

Mar 14 to Mar 22

Spring Break, no classes

Week 9

Sun Mar 22

Project backend code initial submission due

Mon Mar 23

Testing w/ LLMs: Intro: Mandatory reading: Software Testing with Large Language Models: An Interview Study with Practitioners
Special topic reading: An LLM Agentic Approach for Legal-Critical Software: A Case Study for Tax Prep Software

Wed Mar 25

Testing w/ LLMs: TDD: Background reading: The Art of Agile Development: Test-Driven Development
Special topic reading: TDFlow: Agentic Workflows for Test Driven Development

Week 10

Mon Mar 30

Testing w/ LLMs: Evaluating Test Quality: Background reading: Mutation Testing
Special topic reading: E-Test: E’er-Improving Test Suites

Before class on Apr 1

Reflection essay on LLMs for testing due

Wed Apr 1

Testing w/ LLMs: Discussion: No reading

Week 11

Sun Apr 5

Project synthetic tests submission due

Mon Apr 6

Deployment: Intro: Mandatory reading: Amplify Tutorial

Wed Apr 8

Deployment: Backend and CD: Mandatory reading: API Gateway Tutorial

Week 12

Mon Apr 13

Deployment: Monitoring: Background reading: Ewaschuk’s Monitoring Distributed Systems

Before class on Apr 15

Reflection essay on deployment due

Wed Apr 15

Deployment: Discussion: No reading

Week 13

Sun Apr 19

Project deployment due

Mon Apr 20

Static analysis + LLMs: Intro

Mandatory reading: Why AI is pushing developers toward typed languages

Background reading: Thomson’s Static Analysis: An Introduction

Special topics reading: PredicateFix: Repairing Static Analysis Alerts with Bridging Predicates

Wed Apr 22

Static analysis + LLMs: Discussion: Special topics reading: LLM-Based Repair of Static Nullability Errors

Week 14

Mon Apr 27

Guest Lecture (Michael Chong): Evaluating the Quality of LLM-Generated Code: Mandatory Reading: Towards Understanding the Characteristics of Code Generation Errors Made by Large Language Models

Before class on Apr 29

Reflection essay on special topic due (graduate students only)

Wed Apr 29

Special topics discussion + course wrapup: No reading

Week 15

Mon May 4

Project presentations: No reading

Mon May 4

Project final submission + postmortem due

Wed May 6

Project presentations (note: this class day is a snow day makeup): No reading