Meeting Time

• Monday and Wednesday 4:40-5:55pm in LSRC room A247

Attendance is required as class time will often involve participatory exercises, code reviews, or team meetings.
If you must miss class, email me an explanation ahead of time; missing class time without explanation will negatively affect your grade.
If you are feeling unwell, submit an Incapacitation Form instead of attending class.

You will be expected to do a significant amount of reading, designing, coding, and debugging outside of class time — to succeed, you must code, design and, most importantly, think critically.

Teaching Team

	Professor Robert Duvall Office Hours: Tuesdays and Wednesdays 2-3pm in my office LSRC D228 Drop-in policy: You may make an appointment via email
	Graduate TA Zanwen Fu Drop-in policy: You may make an appointment via email

Email is the best way to contact the Teaching Team if you have a personal concern. When using email, please include CompSci 590 at the start of your subject line to help ensure that your email gets past our spam filters and is delivered correctly. In general, you should only email us about administrative aspects of the course; questions about course content are better made using the course Discussion Board since more people will see it. If we do not respond to your email within 24 hours, we probably did not receive it.

Our goal is simple: to help you learn — both inside and outside the classroom. If you have a problem or question, we want to talk about it — do not put it off.

We are excited to bring you the best learning experience we can collaboratively — we will try to adjust how the course works in response to your feedback.

Topics

The following programming topics will be covered during the semester.

• Program Design: Clean Code, Principles, Patterns, APIs, Architectures
• Tools: Version Control, Logging, Unit Testing, Package Mangement, Pipelines
• Professional Practices: Code Reviews, Server/Container setup, configuration, and management, Working with LLMs and Open Source
• Working in Teams: Agile Processes focusing on Communication and Cooperation

The exact order and details of these topics will be given on the course Calendar, which is subject to change during the semester based on the pace needed. Additionally, we may explore collateral topics as dictated by class interests.

Books

While there are no official textbooks for the course, readings will be available online during the semester. The majority of class time will be a discussion about or extension of the reading, not a summary.

YouTube, Podcasts, and AI summaries are popular. We have also curated a lot of resources.

You will be expected to be active participants during class — inability to discuss assigned readings implies a lack of participation.

Grading

This project-based course covers software development and you need to practice implementing code to succeed. During the first half of the semester you will have a number of small homework assignments and in-class activities. The second half of the course will focus on a larger project, in which you will design and implement a more substantial app. At the end of the semester you will demo your final project.

Grading is done on an absolute, but adjustable scale. This means that there is no curve and thus need to compete with your fellow classmates. Anyone earning 90% or more of the total number of points available will receive a grade in the A range; 80% or more guarantees a grade in the B range, 70% or more guarantees a grade in the C range, 60% or more guarantees a grade in the D range. This scale may slide down, but it will not go up.

Participation	10%
Project Analyses	10%
In-class exercises	10%
Programming projects	30%
Final Project	40%

The Open Source community has a concept known as "if it isn't public, it didn't happen". In practical terms, this means you will be expected to regularly show your progress.

Submitting Assignments Late

Plan on submitting work on time, but work submitted within 2 days of the deadline will be given full credit.

Individual extensions beyond that will be granted for:

• medical reasons: you are encouraged to document with Duke any Personal Distress or Emergencies or Long Term Health Issues that interfere with your coursework
• religious holidays: let me know if who expect to miss a class or deadline due to observance of a religious holiday
• or other circumstances beyond your control that are presented with an official Dean's excuse

If you find you are having trouble or consistently behind — do not give up, ask for help as soon as possible.

Collaboration Policy

In accordance with the Duke Community Standard, we encourage proper collaboration, in which all parties participate in actively to learn the material.

This course will be collaborative: you will research and develop ideas in a group of your peers. All students are expected to contribute to all parts of project work, including meeting, research, development, and writing. No group member should be relegated to only working on a single portion of the project.

You are encouraged to use resources on the Internet, including LLMs, to help you learn the course material or solve very specific issues as long as they are attributed. Appropriate uses of LLMs (such as ChatGPT) include editing, requesting examples, and asking questions to aid your understanding. Inappropriate uses of LLMs include using such models to draft code or writing and then presenting that as your own, with or without editing. You should know that these systems are not perfect, but they may be helpful for summarizing, providing examples, and sifting through lots of information.

Specifically, it is unacceptable to

• let someone copy your program code
• copy code from a previous solution of an assignment
• search on the Internet or access an AI Assistant for direct answers to the primary design challenges posed by the assignments

You are encouraged to use small pieces of properly attributed code (using inline comments or in your README if more appropriate) from online sources, open source projects, or generated by AI as long as that code

• does not solve a significant design problem in the assignment
• is something for which you understand how it works, even if you could not have written it from scratch yourself
• is agreed to by the people in your team

Note, you are responsible for explaining, debugging, refactoring, and supporting for your team any code you add to the repository. You cannot claim that design defects or bugs are "okay" because you did not write it.

For each assignment you are expected to include a list of the resources (such as people, AI Assistants, tutorials, or other materials) with which you have consulted in your README file. This file is required and failure to provide it will result in rejection of the assignment as complete.

If you are not sure what the collaboration policy is for a given assignment — ask for clarification!

Diversity

This course is committed to Duke's Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion.

Even beyond this statement, we believe this class should be a secure and supportive learning environment for all students.

Disabilities

This course is committed to providing equal access to students with documented disabilities.

Anyone with disabilities may contact the Student Disability Access Office (SDAO) to ensure equitable access to this course. There you can engage in a confidential conversation about the process for requesting reasonable accommodations both in the classroom and in clinical settings.

Please note that accommodations cannot be provided retroactively — seek out extra assistance and advice early.

Academic Wellness

The semester can be long and stressful for many students, so understanding issues specific to software development and taking steps to reduce stress and improve your physical health are important to maintain positive mental health.

• Blue Devils Care: 24/7 mental telehealth support to all students at no cost. For more information about getting started.
• Counseling & Psychological Services: CAPS provides trained counselors to discuss any issues you are dealing with; having a neutral party to talk to can often help immensely.
• DukeReach: Submit a report to DukeReach if you’re concerned about the physical or mental well-being of yourself or another student.

Duke's goal is simple: to help you learn, both inside and outside the classroom. If you have a problem or question, we want to talk about it — do not put it off.

Computing Requirements

You are expected to have access to and on-going use of a computer on which you can install a software development environment.

Specific project choices may require using a specific language or technology, but there is not a general language, software, or platform requirement.

A laptop is strongly recommended so you can bring it to class, and team, client, or Office Hour meetings.

The Innovation Co-Lab supports tech all over campus. They have staff professionals and experienced students who can help you with tech questions about whatever technology you choose to use. You can see Office Hours times and make appointments, as well as find learning resources.

Online Course Information

• Web Site (https://courses.cs.duke.edu/compsci590.3/spring26/)
  Materials for this course, including the syllabus, notes, reading assignments, homeworks, and other resources, will be available through this course web site.
• Gitlab Server (https://coursework.cs.duke.edu/CompSci590_2026spring)
  All projects are expected to be completed by pushing your code to the course Gitlab server by the end of the day given as the due date (i.e., 11:59:59pm).
• Discussion Board (https://edstem.org/us/courses/91556/discussion)
  You should regularly read and contribute to the course discussion board as it is a useful place for posting questions that are likely to be of interest to the rest of the class. You are encouraged to post responses to questions as well as ask them. The discussion board will be monitored regularly and responses posted to questions that have not previously been answered. Before posting a question, please make sure that you have read all previous messages and that your question has not yet been discussed.
• Email
  You are expected to regularly check your email, as important course announcements may be sent via email.