But there were some small group breakouts to discuss the topic and get to know one another. And David would try check in with each person one-on-one every day to answer questions, give tips, and say hi.
So generally, I'd say this is not a high interactivity course like a group project or something. Everyone is working on a separate implementation.
Though, I took the courses online. And, it looks like that's how he's offering them now. But around the time I took the 2 courses, he had just switched to doing that because of COVID. Presumably, the in person courses offered a lot more time to socialize and go out for a drink in the evening.
In particular, I recently prepped/ran a week-long, in-house training session of Dave's Python-Mastery[1] course at my day job. We had a group of 8 with a mix of junior and senior Software Engineers and while the juniors were generally able to follow along, it really benefited the senior SEs most. It covers the whole language in such depth and detail that you really feel like you've explored every nook and cranny by the time you're done.
[1] https://github.com/dabeaz-course/python-mastery/
(I enjoyed teaching the class so much that I've considered offering my services teaching it on a consulting basis to other orgs. If that interests anyone, feel free to reach out to the email in my profile.)
As you say, he is very good at explaining things - it's hard to describe, but it just clicks. Highly recommended.
I was a bit worried about the online aspect, but there is a very good flow actually.
I took 2 courses: "Rafting Trip" and "Write a Compiler". Both were awesome. The Rafting Trip took us through implementing the Raft consensus algorithm from scratch. And the "Write a Compiler" course had us build a small language using LLVM.
Both courses (but especially the Rafting trip one) were definitely for experienced programmers. In the courses I took, people generally had at least 5 years of professional work. And even still, there were a few people that really struggled to stay on pace in the course.
But at the end, most people had a (kinda) working Raft library or compiler!
[1] https://dabeaz.com/