Coding with LLM Assistants

Catalog description

In under a year, LLM assistants have become a tool that many professional software engineers can't imagine living without. In this course, we will explore that phenomenon and design curriculum and pedagogical adaptations to it. In this class, we will: Conduct a survey-based ethnography of how professional software engineers are using LLMs (e.g., do they find it more useful for architectural planning vs code creation vs code explanation vs identifying bugs; what percentage of the day are they using it; how comfortable do they feel using it to work in frameworks or languages they are themselves unfamiliar with, etc); Engage in structured exploration using different LLM coding assistant tools for actual Stanford assignments (in classes they've already completed) and to perform new tasks in unfamiliar languages, and reflect on those experiences; Read what others are saying about the process of coding with LLMs through review of popular sources (e.g., podcasts, blog posts); Learn an overview of the science of teaching and learning, and what is needed for an effective education in software engineering; Design new curricular materials that address the new needs and practices of professional software engineers, using principles of good pedagogical design.