CompSci 308 : Spring 2026

Design, by nature, is a series of trade-offs. Every choice has a good and bad side, and you make your choice in the context of overall criteria defined by necessity. Good and bad are not absolutes, however. A good decision in one context might be bad in another. — Allen Holub

The exact order and details of topics is subject to change during the semester based on the pace needed, but we will try to set them at least two weeks in advance.
Materials discussed in class and lecture recordings will be posted here.

Date	Topics	Examples/Videos	Lab	Readings	Due
Week 1 Jan 8	Course Overview GIT in Practice	Example: Conditionals Example: Bounce	GITing Started Making Classes	Clean Code OO in One Sentence JavaFX Basics (sections 1-3) GIT Basics	Sun 1/11: Journal - CompSci Autobiography
Week 2 Jan 13/15	Refactoring and Code Smells	Example: Bins	Refactoring	Single Responsibility Principle Code Smells Everything is an Object Refactoring: Extract Class	Tue 1/13: Breakout - Plan and Basic Start Fri 1/16: Journal - Habits and Failure
Week 3 Jan 20/22	Abstraction	Example: Roulette	Team Meeting	Access Control (Encapsulation) Inheritance and Polymorphism Refactoring: Replace Conditional How to Work Well on Teams	Tue 1/20: Breakout - Complete Sat 1/24: Journal - Project Analysis
Week 4 Jan 27/29	JFX GUIs Video Separating Model from Views Unit Testing	Example: Browser	GIT for Teams Testing Team Planning	Open Closed Principle Model-View Separation Principle JUnit Test Infected JavaFX GUIs (sections 4-5)	Tue 1/27: Cell Society - Plan Fri 1/30: Journal - Starting and Ethics
Week 5 Feb 3/5	APIs and Interfaces Exceptions	Example: Browser (continued) Java Time and Dates Java Iterable and Iterator	Making an API Team Planning	Josh Bloch on API Design Throwing, Designing Exceptions Java Interfaces Are So Very Cool Towards Ethics by Default	Tue 2/3: Cell Society - Basic and Test Fri 2/6: Journal - Testing
Week 6 Feb 10/12	Encapsulation GUI Testing	Example: Encapsulation Lecture Video	Testing Team Planning	Liskov Substitution Principle Why Lamba Expressions Benefits of Immutable Objects User Interface Testing with TestFX	Fri 2/13: Journal - Midpoint Team Review
Week 7 Feb 17/19	Design Patterns "Advanced" Java	Example: Reflection Example: Browser (continued)	Design Patterns	Introduction to Design Patterns Dependency Inversion Principle Design by Contract Reflection	Tue 2/17: Cell Society - General and Robust Fri 2/20: Journal - Ethics (Professional)
Week 8 Feb 24/26	SOLID Design
Week 9 Mar 3/5	Ethics
10 - Mar 10/12	*SPRING BREAK*
Week 11 Mar 17/19	Agile Project Management		Team Meeting
Week 12 Mar 24/26	Agile Project Design
Week 13 Mar 31/Apr 2	TBD
Week 14 Apr 7/9	TBD
Week 15 Apr 14/16	TBD
Week 16 Apr 21	Wrap-Up		*NO Lab Meeting*
Fri, May 1	Final Project Demos, in person 7-10pm