Is it a lot of reading?
No. The readings are short pieces that help you understand how a bug comes to be. We look at what the app was supposed to do, what somebody assumed, and why that assumption broke. I explain it in plain English, with real bug stories along the way. You don't need to know how to code.
Then you get to play with it
The labs are little puzzles in practice apps built to be broken. You make a prediction, change one thing and see what happens. A wrong guess is fine. Figuring out why the app did something you didn't expect is part of the fun.
A taste of the hidden-price puzzle
Who gets to set the price?
The moonmart practice shop sells a sticker pack for $4.00. Its checkout page sends the price to the server, which is the part of the app that handles the order.
You can change what the page sends. What do you think happens if you send a price of one cent?
See what happens
Order placed. Total: $0.01.
The shop trusted the price you sent. Hiding that price on the page didn't stop you changing it. The server should have looked up the real price itself.
Now you know why the bug happens. In the lab, you try it yourself, then you can test the fixed version to see what changes.
A write-up is explaining what you found
The weekly write-up is one page with seven prompts. You describe what you tried, what happened and what the app should have done. Plain English is fine, including the fix. You don't have to write code.
I read every write-up and give you feedback. If something needs another look, it comes back as "almost there" and you revise it. There are no letter grades or leaderboards.
How it fits into your week
Plan on about 4 hours a week in total, including 90 minutes live with your group. We talk through the idea together, try things and make time for questions. You do the readings, puzzles and write-up on your own time during the week.
Week 0 is self-paced. The eight-week curriculum shows what we cover each week.