Jinsheng Ba
Instructor
CSC4801 is offered by The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen (CUHK-Shenzhen). It is a hands-on course on building software with coding agents. It moves through three stages: first the basis — how AI and large language models work, and how they support software engineering; then the techniques — the basic methods of applying AI across the engineering lifecycle; and finally the application — a real-world team project where you practice using AI to build, test, and secure a working product.
Fourteen weeks, meeting Tuesdays and Thursdays, excluding the National Day recess (Oct 1–7). Slides are posted after each class.
| Wk | Date | Topic | Slides | Assessments | Readings |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Tue Sep 08 | Introduction | Slides | — | |
| Thu Sep 10 | Principles of LLMs | Slides | |||
| 02 | Tue Sep 15 | Principles of Agents | Slides | — | |
| Thu Sep 17 | Advanced Agents | Slides | |||
| 03 | Tue Sep 22 | MCP/Skills & Project Announcment | Slides | — | |
| Thu Sep 24 | Prompts | — | HW 1 released | ||
| 04 | Tue Sep 29 | Requirements | — | — | |
| Thu Oct 08 | Specification Driven Development | — | |||
| 05 | Tue Oct 13 | Coding I | — | — | |
| Thu Oct 15 | Coding II | — | HW 1 due · 23:59 HW 2 released | ||
| 06 | Tue Oct 20 | Team Collaboration | — | — | |
| Thu Oct 22 | Quiz 1 & Coding Exercise | — | Quiz 1 | ||
| 07 | Tue Oct 27 | Testing & Verification | — | — | |
| Thu Oct 29 | Fuzzing | — | HW 2 due · 23:59 HW 3 released | ||
| 08 | Tue Nov 03 | Security | — | — | |
| Thu Nov 05 | Prompt Injection | — | |||
| 09 | Tue Nov 10 | Repair | — | — | |
| Thu Nov 12 | AIOps | — | HW 3 due · 23:59 | ||
| 10 | Tue Nov 17 | Quiz 2 & Project Exercise | — | Quiz 2 | |
| Thu Nov 19 | Guest Speaker | — | |||
| 11 | Tue Nov 24 | Guest Speaker | — | — | — |
| Thu Nov 26 | Guest Speaker | — | — | — | |
| 12 | Tue Dec 01 | Project Competition | — | — | Leaderboard |
| Thu Dec 03 | Project Competition | — | — | — | |
| 13 | Tue Dec 08 | Project Presentation | — | — | — |
| Thu Dec 10 | Project Presentation | — | — | — | |
| 14 | Tue Dec 15 | Project Presentation | — | — | — |
| Thu Dec 17 | Project Presentation | — | — | — |
