Software Engineer Scholars

In this course, we'll increase the level of complexity from the Programming Prep course and work on more meaningful exercises. We'll use a static code analyzer and learn to systematically approach a problem using pseudo-code. As we go through these programs, we'll point out important learning concepts like variable scope, method scope, and using blocks. After this course, you should have a good grasp of how to write programs and think in an imperative, step-by-step, logical fashion. You will also learn to debug and trap tricky bugs, and learn to develop a temperament for debugging.

Object oriented programming is at the heart of Ruby, and in this course we'll work on demystifying OOP and how to code in an OO fashion. We'll cover topics such as inheritance and encapsulation and get at the core of what Ruby programming is about. You'll be challenged to debug and design several non-trivial OO programs. After this course, you should know: classes and objects, instance variables, class variables, instance methods, class methods, class inheritance, working with collaborator objects, and many other basic OO concepts.

This course will cover some language specific aspects of the JavaScript programming language. We'll start with some additional programming practice, with a focus on emulating JavaScript's built-in iteration methods. We'll also create a small pair of classes that implement a todo list, after which we'll move on to a variety of topics that explore the nooks and crannies of JavaScript. In particular, we'll look at the var statement, hoisting, strict mode, closures, private data, immediately invoked functions, new ES6 shorthand syntax, modules, exceptions, and garbage collection. Then we'll take a brief dive into the world of testing with Jest, and follow that up with a brief lesson on how to package code for distribution. You'll be ready to move on to more advanced topics and projects after completing this course. You will also be able to work on a solve some programming challenges, both here, as well as at other coding practice sites like Codewars and Exercism.

This course will explore HTTP, the protocol that powers the web. We'll start off by looking at the internet, the infrastructure behind the web, before diving into HTTP in more detail. After this course, you'll have a good understanding of the HTTP request/response cycle and the way in which it forms the basis for networked applications.

This course will cover server side development from first principles. We'll build on your knowledge of HTTP and the request/response cycle to create a dynamic web application from scratch, before moving on to build some more complex applications using a lightweight development framework. We'll also talk about other development considerations such as deployment and security, and deploy an application to Heroku.

This course focuses on the relational model, the SQL language, and how to work with relational databases. We start with SQL and the relational data model, introduce core database concepts such as tables, rows, columns, keys, constraints and joins, and guide you to learn how to interact with databases from various types of applications. Before we depart, we'll also look at query optimization issues.

This course takes the lessons of LS180 and introduces the concept of working with databases from your applications. We'll build a simple command-line application, then move on to a more advanced database-backed Todo application that uses a high-level relational abstraction library. We'll also talk about how to optimize SQL queries from within your applications.

The Front-end curriculum will deep dive into the basic building blocks of client side programming: HTML and CSS. We'll cover many aspects of front end development, including converting design files to web pages, writing semantic HTML, building fluid layouts and responsive design. We will cap off the course with projects that will reinforce the concepts that you've learned throughout the course and end with a project that will familiarize you with a typical workflow for projects built from the ground-up.

Programming is a creative process that can be separated into two steps:Understand the problem to be solved, and build a mental model that can solve the problem abstractlyImplement the model and code it in a formal programming languageThis course focuses on the first step of the process. The main goal of this course is to help beginners learn to think logically and computationally, and to supply them with a set of problem-solving patterns. We have to choose a language, however, and JavaScript serves as an excellent vehicle to express logical solutions to problems.

In this course, we'll begin to draw from what we’ve mastered in the HTML/CSS course and the JavaScript courses and learn how to add behavior to our user interfaces with JavaScript. We’ll start by learning about the DOM and how it lets developers change a document. In the lessons that follow, we’ll see how to update the interface in response to actions triggered by the user or the browser. We’ll also explore XMLHttpRequest, one of the browser APIs that provide network programming functionality to JavaScript applications. We’ll discuss how we can leverage third party libraries, such as jQuery to simplify certain aspects of front-end development. Finally, we'll pull all of those topics together to work on a number of projects.