Derrick Stone acc knows his shit and explains really important concepts especially regarding dbs really well but nobody pays attention cuz he's boring which is his fault. Everyone j chats the hws (again his fault for not enforcing jack) but if you manage to type everything by hand and understand you will probably better than like 95% people. Don't waste your time going to TA's for help since they also don't know jack. This class had a lot of potential but holy disappointment. Props to Stone for at least knowing what he is talking about.

This class is 30% in-class worksheets and 70% projects. The in-class lectures are extremely boring but you have to attend for the points. The projects are completely team based. I had a good group which definitely helped my experience but the tasks are so broad. I think he will for sure change the system and structure of the course in Fall 2026.

Stone is a nice professor, but this class is genuinely just a waste of time. The lectures were so useless, I don't think I ever paid attention to a lecture. 30% of your grade is attendance, so I was literally only going to class to do the in-class assignment, and then I would do homework or study for another class the rest of the time. The projects are the stupidest thing I have ever had to do. He assigns you a random 4-person group for the entire semester, and your grade is dependent on whether or not your WHOLE project works. I had a team member who never went to class, and another one who would come and only sit next to his friends and not with my group. They also never communicated in our group chats, and we had one assignment where they didn't even turn in their part of the project (even though I did my part and the other guy did his), so we all got 50s on the homework. When I went to complain to Stone, he said that this class is trying to simulate what SWE is like in the "real world," but in the real world, if I am telling my boss that my coworker literally isn't doing his job, then he would get fired?? Like, where is the logic? Why am I being forced to do everyone else's work because of that...

This class is just "who can write Claude the best prompt" because the amount of work you have to do if you aren't using AI is insane. He said he wanted the final project to be a minimum of 30k lines of code, which, as a "development essentials" and not a "SWE" class, is a lot!

My best advice for everyone who has to take this class, if you do not like your group after the very first homework, SWAP GROUPS. It is not worth the amount of extra work that comes with it. Also, get Claude premium. Good luck!

Derrick Stone is a very nice and approachable lecturer, but wow, was this class frustrating, chaotic, and stressful. Your final grade is based off 70% homework and 30% participation. If you go to class, work on the homework because you can randomly write stuff in the in-class participation activity and get full marks. The lectures are also not helpful in finishing the homework, so there’s no point in fully paying attention to the lecture.

The entire semester, you’re working with randomly assigned group members, where 50% of your homework grade is dependent on how competently they do their part. If they mess up something, like the database, then not only do you lose points, but if you’re assigned to add a feature to that part of the project for the next homework, then you have to fix it… So, not only do you lose points for their mistakes, but 1 out of 3 times you’re the one having to fix it. Derrick Stone is the type of lecturer who would classify this as a “real-world scenario,” whilst the only “real world” portion of this course is the nonsensical 5 pm Friday homework deadline. It got even more absurd when he himself admitted that the TAs graded the assignments in the last few days of the deadline, so the 5 pm deadline is actually there to prepare you for a 9-5.

The only useful thing you learn from this class is how to use GitHub, SQLite, and Claude to fix your teammates’ bugs. As a previous post mentioned, AI is a gray area, but it is completely unrealistic to complete the work given without AI, unless you invest 7+ hours per homework. By looking at the average GPA, you can see that even AI isn’t enough to get an A in this class. The main reason is that the “real” grading rubric is unknown until the grading has begun. There are checklists at the end of each document, but it’s not uncommon to see more detailed and new rubric items appear on Gradescope after your assignment has been graded.

Overall, I honestly don’t know why this class is required. The way we’re allowed to use GitHub (no branching) is unrealistic for any job. SQLite and testing are the only things I learned that are useful. You’re already proficient in object-oriented programming in Java after DSA1, so you don’t need to learn much about Java...

This class is just a test of how stupid people are when they work in a group. Starting S26, everyone now gets a randomly assigned group that lasts for the entire semester. You can't change groups because people aren't doing work, only if they drop the class or something else drastic. The hardest part of this class is dealing with teammates that have varying levels of skill and varying levels of care about their GPAs.

Stone is an interesting guy but ultimately his lectures are completely unrelated to the work you are doing. 30% of your grade is showing up to class (he often ends lecture early for group work time), and 70% is group assignments. You build out a project throughout the semester, with each homework assignment lasting 2 weeks and adding more features on.

Grading for homeworks is in 2 parts: half your grade is if the assignment does what it is supposed to do, and the other half is if you completed the work that was assigned to your role. Everyone rotates roles and gets experience with all portions of the assignment. The best strategy to success is to have Claude Code write the entire project (gray area, AI is allowed but he didn't clarify the extent). If you have a teammate that pushes bad code or just doesn't do work, you personally are not penalized if you do their portion. It's always better to have Claude do someone else's work to save everyone's "does it work" score at the cost of their participation score.

Overall it's not difficult, just takes a solid 1-2 hours of work minimum per person per homework assignment. If you aren't as good at using AI that time can go up to 3-4 hours.

Respectfully, this is one of the most painful classes that I have ever had to take. Professor Stone is a really nice guy, but he does not prepare for lecture ahead of time and sometimes he doesn't even know what is going on in the code that he has to teach us. This made it really difficult to learn anything relevant to the course, and I feel that I learned the most from the group projects. My biggest recommendation for this course is to take the class when you have a lot of friends that you know are good group members so you can work with people that you know. The group projects require you to work ahead of time otherwise you will have a rude awakening when you have a bug that you cannot fix. Stone is not the best lecturer for this class, so I would honestly recommend another teacher in place so that your sanity is spared. The class is alright, but Stone is not fully prepared and is sometimes confused.