The First Edition will continue to be available as a free download, but all of the exercises, autograders, and other materials match the Second Edition.
Free PDF download: English 1.2.2, Spanish 1.1.1, Brazilian Portuguese 1.1.2
We cannot offer the Chinese or Greek language editions for free because we do not control those copyrights.
Crossing the Software Education Chasm by Armando Fox & David Patterson (Communications of the ACM, May 2012) explains how & why we created the course. Includes very informal short video discussing the tools used in the MOOC & SPOC, including autograders.
Software Engineering Curriculum Technology Transfer: Lessons Learned from MOOCs and SPOCs. Armando Fox, David Patterson, Sam Joseph (Hawaii Pacific Univ.), Kristen Walcott-Justice (U. Colorado at Colorado Springs), Richard Ilson (UNC Charlotte), Rose Williams (Binghamton U.) UC Berkeley Technical Report EECS-2014-17.
[Longer version, which includes commentary about the role of e-books] Software Engineering Curriculum Technology Transfer: Lessons Learned from E-books, MOOCs, and SPOCs by Armando Fox and David Patterson, and including the experiences of instructors at four other universities using this course as a SPOC. Presented at SPLASH-E 2013.
From MOOCs to SPOCs: How MOOCs Can Strengthen Academia by Armando Fox. Communications of the ACM 56(12), Viewpoint column. Explains how the SPOC model overcomes some of the problems with MOOCs and presents new opportunities for classroom instructors.
From MOOCs to SPOCs, an extended version of the SPOC argument that is slated to appear an upcoming ACM Ubiquity Symposium on MOOCs.
“I took the CS169.1x and CS169.2x MOOCs in the fall and winter, and I
wanted to send you a long-overdue thanks for all of your amazing work…I
graduated from UC Irvine in 2004 with bachelors in CS and had worked for
many years as a .NET developer, but last year I decided to make a big
transition to start working with more”startup-y” tech stacks. CS169 is
so much more than just a Rails class or an intro to building SaaS apps.
You somehow managed to build a course that encompasses almost everything
about modern software development, but under the guise of building Rails
SaaS apps. Hilariously, despite my focus on iOS and Objective-C, your
class is most directly responsible for my successful transition. Every
single day at work, I use what I learned about the importance of unit
tests (especially for refactoring!), the wisdom and pitfalls of agile
development, SOLID/DRY/design patterns, etc. This knowledge gives me a
clear edge over others. It’s rare to have someone break down complex
topics in easily digestible chunks and connect all the disparate
concepts of software development into a cohesive whole. Thanks for
making a difference. I owe you a beer or three.” Richard Shin, San
Francisco, USA
As an on-the-job trained C# WinForms programmer, this course was instrumental in extending my conceptual understanding of our web-based components. Additionally, the soup-to-nuts tour through a largely foreign language, framework, and tool-set was a wonderful mini-simulation of joining a new development shop. Russell Speight, Springbrook Software, Inc. Portland, OR
“I graduated from Rice with a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science in 2006, and I’ve worked at a bunch of different tech companies…I recently left Amazon and I have to say, if I had taken this course before my more recent stint over there, my time would have been a LOT better spent, and I’d have been able to understand a lot of methodology decisions that were (implicitly) made in my team, and influence others better, especially with having seen a ton of the studies and data on software engineering projects you guys mention early on in the book/course…the course has especially re-interested me in computer science and building software again…just wanted to give one (among many many I’m sure) direct response of thank you.” Tom Mowad, Seattle, USA
“For professionals working in industries reliant on legacy software development models and tools, this course offers vital insight into far more contemporary development practices and tools. Courses such as this present an invaluable opportunity to stay relevant in today’s increasingly cloud-based world, especially for those who may not have the opportunity to be exposed to these topics in their day to day jobs.” Trevor Garson, Software Engineer at Pratt & Whitney, San Diego, CA
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“A fast-paced introduction to building high-quality web applications. You get exposed to some of the best software engineering practices while learning a modern development framework and very productive tools.” Francisco Hoyos,
“When I took the Engineering SaaS course, I was a senior bachelor student in software engineering at Shiraz University in Iran. Back then I had no idea that this course was going to change my life. It changed the way I code today, my views on testing and how it can be fun instead of painful, and how to manage a software project in the best way possible. Now I use those software project management principles in both my work and daily life….I think taking this course was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made in my life.” Arash Pourhabibi-Zarandi, Shiraz University, Iran, and EPFL, Switzerland
“I am a Telecommunications Engineer with a deep love for software and coding who was stuck doing a networking job I didn’t really enjoy. I took your course with great interest and got a Verified Certificate. When I interviewed for FinancialForce.com, a software company located in my home town in Spain, I couldn’t believe how many of the things I was being asked I already knew from the SaaS course! It was a great experience. The emphasis on testing given in the course finally made me land a job as an Automated Test Engineer, and after working there for a few months, I couldn’t be happier. I wanted to personally thank you for doing an incredibly good job with the course and its contents—the effort is worth if it can change people’s lives around the world like it did for me. Thank you Armando, Dave, Sam and everyone else.” Miguel Cabrera-García, Granada, Spain
“I was totally discouraged with college and with the Computer Science degrees here in Spain. And then, in summer holidays, I found the Berkeley MOOC SaaS course. And what you and David were teaching was so different from my college classes…And I loved it, it was so cool compared with my Java and classic project management classes… Even though it was hard for me at first, I completed both courses, and I loved them. In Spain nobody asks for volunteer internships, and I was shocked about how Berkeley students work with nonprofit organizations to get their hands dirty with real projects…That encouraged me and made me look for a company that works in that way, and even in my not very big city (Valencia), I only had to send one email to get a”yes, come here and learn with us.” So I become an intern with a great group of folks who became my mentors from day one. Now I’m finishing my degree with my final project being done with Rails and and agile practices (something totally new in my college), and I have two job offers in my own city before finishing college. I suppose that you receive tons of emails like mine, but I couldn’t resist to thank you and tell you how you and David changed my life with your MOOC SaaS courses.” Marc Sardón, Valencia, Spain
“When we took your class we were working on setting up our own business which involved building a SaaS application. We learned how to use Agile, BDD and TDD to develop and test our application and speed up the delivery of our services…A year after that we won a contract from the Indonesian Airports Authority Angkasa Pura I (AP1) for the system of their procurement services. The concepts we learned in class helped us to develop and deploy the application in only two months time. The service we built has been used for almost a year at AP1 and has helped in providing 15% savings from their purchases which translates into almost double increase in profits for the company. [Now] to move on quickly we need financing to build our organization, raise awareness and educate corporate clients and regulators, roll out service to additional clients (our second client has just signed up), recruit and educate more suppliers and deploy a scalable infrastructure. We have met a few VCs from the region since the beginning of this year and one in particular has been in advance talks with regards to the financing of our business so wish us luck!” Reza Anwar and Tanti Ruwani, Jakarta, Indonesia
