Course Catalog
Learning Generative AI in Software Development
95-711
Units: 3
Description
Dates: This micro course will meet from 9:00 AM until 1:00 PM on
Friday, October 24, Saturday, October 25, and Sunday, October 26.
Place: Hamburg Hall room 1002
Description: Generative AI has the potential to significantly
enhance developer productivity. This micro-mini course delves
into how Microsoft Copilot can be used for various tasks,
including code generation, chat assistance, refactoring,
unit testing, data file manipulation, and documentation.
Examples will span multiple programming languages, such
as Java, Python, and Javascript. The course will be
hands-on and involve teamwork. Everyone will need a
laptop to run code. There will be pre-work to set
up your environment and post-work to include a
short (1-to-3 page) paper.
Learning Outcomes
Learning Objectives:
1. Learn how to use Copilot to create prompts to generate code.
2. Evaluate the code generated by Copilot for correctness and style.
3. Understand issues related to Copilot's effect on software
development productivity.
4. Utilize Copilot to assist with problem-solving using
pseudocode.
5. Investigate Copilot's ability to create correct documentation
from an existing code base.
6. Learn how Copilot can be used to generate tests.
7. Experiment with using Copilot to create code to process
various message formats (XML, JSON, CSS).
8. Understand Copilot's ability to assist with graphical
display languages (HTML, MathML, etc.).
9. Learn how Copilot can be used to translate existing
code into other languages.
10. Investigate various prompt patterns that may be used
to enhance Copilot prompts.
Prerequisites Description
Prerequisites: While there is no formal prerequisite, it is
assumed that students have some programming background.
Specifically, each student should be familiar with
concepts such as variables, data type, iteration, and
functions in at least one programming language (not
necessarily limited to Python or Java).