A 16-week sequel. The skills that survive AI. The skills that direct it.

THE ARCHITECT'S
GAME.

COACH

DR. MICHAEL LITMAN, Ph.D.

Master Computer Scientist

AI can write the lines. You write the system. Coding 1 taught you to program; Coding 2 teaches you to be the senior engineer in a room where one of your collaborators is an AI. Eight weeks sharpening the skills that survive. Eight more learning to direct AI as a partner.

START WEEK 1 SEE THE SYLLABUS
16
Chapters
14
Projects
8+8
Sharpen → Partner
1
Language: Java

PHASE 1 · THE EDGE · WEEKS 1–8

The skills AI cannot give you.

Reading code. Writing specifications. Handling errors deliberately. Writing tests before code. Debugging by hypothesis. Thinking recursively. Using collections fluently. Eight weeks. AI off. These are the reps you build that everything in Phase 2 is built on.

PHASE 2 · THE GAME · WEEKS 9–16

The skills that direct AI well.

You are the senior. The AI is the fast, willing, sometimes-wrong junior. You write the spec. You read the output. You catch the bugs. You decide the architecture. You stand behind the shipped code. Pair programming when one of the pair is a tool.

— SYLLABUS

Phase 1 · The Edge

Weeks 1–8. Sharpen the foundational engineering skills.

Week 1
Ch 1 — Reading Code Like Scripture
Reading code fluently — the senior engineer's primary skill
P1 The Code Comprehension Brief
Week 2
Ch 2 — Contracts and Specifications
Pre/postconditions, invariants, Javadoc, signatures as contracts
P2 Spec Before Code
Week 3
Ch 3 — Exception Handling
try/catch/finally, checked vs unchecked, custom exceptions, chaining
P3 The Robust Refactor
Week 4
Ch 4 — Testing as Discipline
JUnit, Arrange/Act/Assert, TDD, unit vs integration
P4 Test-First Calculator
Week 5
Ch 5 — Debugging Discipline
Stack traces, bisection, hypotheses, debugger vs printlns, when to rewrite
P5 Sabotage Recovery
Week 6
Ch 6 — Files, Data, and Persistence
java.nio.file, reading text/CSV/JSON, writing data, parsing
P6 The Catechism Data Pipeline
Week 7
Ch 7 — Recursion
Base case + recursive case, mathematical and structural recursion, stack frames
P7 Three Recursive Problems
Week 8
Ch 8 — Collections, Generics, and Midterm Review
Map, Set, List interfaces; generics; the standard library you actually use
P8 Apologetics Catalog (MIDTERM)

Phase 2 · The Game

Weeks 9–16. Direct AI as a senior partner.

Week 9
Ch 9 — Pair Programming With AI
The senior/junior model, what AI is good at and what it is not, hallucinated APIs
P9 Spec → AI → Review
Week 10
Ch 10 — Prompts as Specifications
Precision in prompts, constraints, in-prompt examples, the test-first prompt
P10 Two Prompts, Two Outcomes
Week 11
Ch 11 — Code Review
Subtle wrong: off-by-one, null handling, ignored edges, slow algorithms, fake APIs
P11 Find the Bugs in AI's Code
Week 12
Ch 12 — Architecture First
Decomposing problems before asking for code, single responsibility, interfaces, module shape
P12 Design Before You Prompt
Week 13
Ch 13 — Iterative Refinement
Diagnostic prompting, narrowing the search, showing tests, asking the right question
P13 Drive AI to Green
Week 14
Ch 14 — The Honesty Question
Authorship, attribution, academic integrity, vocation of the human creator
(no new project — drills + reading)
Week 15
Ch 15 — Capstone Preparation
Putting it all together: read, spec, design, build, test, refactor, reflect
(no new project — drills + final prep)
Week 16
Ch 16 — Final Review
Capstone — a complete small application built with documented AI partnership
P14 A Real Small Application (FINAL)