Application Development

Undergraduate / Graduate

The new reality is that every company is a software company. Even in traditionally brick-and-mortar industries, software is performing more and more of the work. Many companies (especially "lean startups") are purely software-based. Lacking an understanding of how software works and how software is built puts you at a disadvantage. Our goal is to develop an understanding of both. We believe the best way to do that is to build something yourself, using modern languages and workflows. You will build a functional prototype of your own app idea, and will learn the Ruby on Rails web application framework. Higher-level goals are to: 1. Understand the general, platform-independent patterns of how apps work. 2. Communicate more effectively and credibly. 3. Develop a builder's eye for problems that can be solved with technology. 4. Prioritize features more intelligently by developing a better feel for their costs. 5. Implement a modern software development workflow, from task management to version control to quality assurance to deployment. 6. Be able to make and test small changes to an app yourself. This course is entirely project-driven. We will build a series of apps in class. Also, you will build your own app idea which will be your final project. This course is designed for a beginner who has never programmed before. Note: Due to the intensive support requirements and volume of requests, we can't allow auditors.