2-Day Building Robust Maintainable Software Using genAI

By the end of the course, you should be able to meet the following objectives: 

• Understand the opportunities and limitations of using AI coding assistants.
• Apply test driven development to validate and guide AI-generated code/
• Explore strategies to maintain software quality and reliability when working with generative AI
• Gain practical experience balancing human creativity with machine support in coding.
• Consider the ethical and environmental impact of AI-assisted development.

Prerequisites

• Laptops required.

• Participants will work both independently and in pairs.

• Programming languages used will be the choice of the participants.

• You don’t need to be a coding expert, but you should be able to build simple software systems in the language of your choice.

• All attendees will need an OpenAI subscription to participate fully in the workshop.

• Intro to genAI coding and current arguments for and against
• Getting started: First choices and simple results
• Small Language Models (SLMs)
• Our first small app
• Prompt engineering: How to persuade genAI to behave itself
• Getting started with the test-driven approach

• Our second small app
• Comparing the test-driven approach with allowing genAI to roam free
• Quality assurance and risk mitigation
• Tweaking our app for best results
• Summary: What we’ve learnt

• Build better software with the help of genAI, without losing control
• Learn how to turn AI outputs into reliable, maintainable code
• Master TDD techniques to keep code quality high
• Get hands-on practice building real apps with AI support
• Discover how to reduce risks, errors and environmental impact
• Walk away with practical skills you can apply right away