We returned to MIT last month to teach a revised version of Missing Semester, six years after the original debut (which has been extensively discussed on HN, in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22226380 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34934216).

We’ve updated the course based on our personal experiences as well as major changes in the field (e.g., the proliferation of AI-powered developer tools) over the past several years. The 2026 course includes revised versions of four lectures from the previous course, and it adds five entirely new lectures:

- Development Environment and Tools

- Packaging and Shipping Code

- Agentic Coding

- Beyond the Code (soft skills)

- Code Quality

We’d love to hear any feedback from the HN community to improve the current or future iterations of the course. In particular, we’re curious to hear the community’s take on our inclusion of AI-related topics (e.g., dedicating an entire class to the topic of agentic coding; though we tried to counterbalance it with plenty of disclaimers, and a dedicated section on AI etiquette in Beyond the Code).

--Anish, Jon, and Jose