New semester, new elective: AI Drevne Applikationer (AIDA). First session was the usual kickoff, covering course structure, exam expectations, what “AI-driven applications” actually covers, and how LLMs fit into modern software architecture rather than just being a chat window bolted onto the side of an app.
The practical task was getting a portfolio website running with Hugo and the Blowfish theme. I already had mine, this same site, originally built for the JavaJolt backend project last semester, so instead of setting one up from scratch, session one became a chance to look at it with a different lens. One portfolio, multiple courses, and now a second discipline layered on top of the first: REST APIs and Hibernate on one side, LLMs and agentic tooling on the other. That’s honestly the more interesting outcome than a fresh repo would have been, since it’s one continuous professional site instead of a new one per class, which is what I’d actually want to hand someone with a CV.
On expectations for AI in software development: coming from a semester that was almost entirely “build the backend correctly by hand,” I’m curious where the line actually sits between AI as a tool that removes grunt work and AI as something that changes what the work even is. Writing DAOs and JPA mappings by hand taught me the mechanics; I don’t think I’d have understood why an agent’s suggestion was right or wrong without having done that first. So my honest expectation going in is that this course is less about learning to use AI and more about learning to supervise it, reading its output critically, knowing when to trust a retrieval result, and documenting the reasoning behind the choices it’s involved in, not just the code it produced. First real test of that starts next session with RAG.