Lectures — the MAGE curriculum

The lecture curriculum is organized into three acts, corresponding to major stages of the semester project. Act I develops the foundations students need to define and specify what they will build, and concludes as teams complete the requirements and specification stage of the project. Acts II and III follow the project from building and governing the system to operating, evolving, and reasoning about software in the world.

Each unit includes slides and associated readings.

The lectures are accompanied by The Software Engineering Handbook: A Judgment and Decision-Making Approach, a concise written treatment of the engineering ideas developed in the course.

The example calendar shows how the lectures and project were coordinated in a 16-week course at Purdue.

Units are published as their teaching materials are completed.

Act I — Foundations

What are the fundamental activities and structures of software engineering?

• Engineering & GenAI
• Process
• Teamwork
• Requirements
• Specification
• Architecture
• Design
• Validation
• Engineering Decision-Making and Metrics

Act II — Delegation and Control

How do we delegate realization, govern what is produced, and learn when reality contradicts our expectations?

• Delegating to Software Agents: Old Problem, New Properties
• Modeling: Representation & Implementation
• Modeling: Engineering with Models
• Alignment: From Guidance to Authority
• Alignment: Governing Realization
• Failure-Aware Engineering

Remaining materials forthcoming.

Act III — Software in the World

How do software systems operate, survive, and change?

• Deployment, Operations & Observability
• Security & Adversarial Engineering
• Maintenance & Evolution
• Engineering Capital & Sustained Evolution
• Engineering in Practice
• Professional Judgment, Ethics & Synthesis

Materials forthcoming.