Let’s get real: “If you ain’t struggling, you ain’t learning”

This course has been designed to promote a life-long learning ethos towards software development.

Watching someone else write code is only the start. You need to get your hands dirty yourself.

You will be a great programmer by doing lots of practical programming exercises.

It’s this struggle that makes you learn, and then things will “click”!

So, how do we promote this in SOFTENG 281?

The modern way to learn just about anything when it comes to software development, is to first take advantage of the wealth of excellent online resources out there.

• We will short-list videos that brief and excellent.
• These videos will be shared along with brief text tying them together.
• You will watch these videos in your own time, before lectures.

After you watch the videos, you need to do some practical exercises.

• We will do this together in lectures, where we focus on:
  • Reinforcing what the videos explained,
  • Developing our programming strategy,
  • Developing our debugging skills,
  • Building confidence in being practical.

How will this help you learn?

• Efficiency:
  • You save your own time, by only listening to what you need.
  • You don’t have to sit listening to a boring lecture that is “too easy” or has “already lost you”.
  • Instead, your in-class time is spent actively engaging and challenging you.
• Effectiveness:
  • If you didn’t quite understand something, you can easily rewatch (parts of) it.
  • Most important, this frees up the lecture time for practical exercises!
    • This is where the real learning happens!