Boot.dev has been my side-project for the last couple of years now. Being a learning path for backend developers focused on quality over quantity, I knew early on that it needed to have a really tight feedback loop from students. We had (and still have) a Discord server where myself and the students hang out, and that worked okay at first. Unfortunately, Discord channels have a couple problems when it comes to issue tracking:
If you want to learn to code, there are many strategies to get your coding skills from non-existent to employable. Some folks might go back to university and get a formal education in computer science. Others prefer to teach themselves. And of course, you can always choose to put yourself through coding bootcamp.
Step 1: Develop a caffeine addiction. If you want to add coding to your list of skills, either out of curiosity or to take your career in a whole new direction, you’ve probably considered a coding bootcamp. Then you’ve probably looked at the prices and time commitment and immediately wondered how to do a coding bootcamp part-time, instead.
While it’s straightforward to get Hello World implemented in Python, learning the ins and outs of the programming language takes a lot of time and effort.
I’ve been building Boot.dev as a side-project for the last couple of years, and have recently had many new students ask the same question:
With markets in a slump, many of us are concerned a recession could be right around the corner. The NASDAQ is already down 27% so far in 2022. Heck, maybe we’re already in the middle of a recession.
And an answer to what you’re really asking: “are coding bootcamps worth it?” I’ll give you the quick answer right off the bat: coding bootcamps cost 13,500 on average based on the data collected by BestColleges. On the upper end of that range, coding bootcamps cost upwards of $20,000. Some of the less-expensive camps are a couple thousand dollars. It’s 2026 as I write this, so those numbers have probably increased even more in the interim.
I looked at the cost, duration, structure, and USP for each online coding bootcamp If you’ve been living under a rock for the last decade, let me quickly tell you about what a coding bootcamp is before I get into the top online coding bootcamps. Basically, a coding bootcamp is an expensive and mentally intense way to shoehorn skills and knowledge into your brain at top speed, allowing you to skip past degrees at record speed.
I’ve spent an unhealthy amount of time online over the course of my life, and in the last couple years I’ve been managing a Discord server for people who are learning computer science. Like all online communities, we have ban, kick, and moderation policies so that we’re not overrun with spammers and other non-contributors. However, I’m not perfect, and I have realized recently that we get a decent number of members who at first glance seemed like a spammer, but it turns out they just have no idea how to communicate online in a way that’s useful to themselves and others.
Is it a bit dramatic, perhaps, to say that the fate of the world rests on computer science and that’s why you should learn computer science?
I’ve found that almost anyone I talk to agrees with the statement: There is something wrong with education, particularly higher education.
tl;dr At Boot.dev we’ve launched “community insights”! Insights make it possible for our students to drop comments at the bottom of any step in our coding courses. We’ve quickly found that we have amazing students, and it’s much better for everyone if we give them tools to help each other more directly.
Why you need a coding community The one thing that every programmer has in common, whether they’ve only ever implemented a “Hello World” program or they’re considered a “senior” software engineer, is the need to continuously learn. New technologies, programming languages, frameworks, libraries, and conventions are constantly being introduced to the industry. As a beginner, it can be hard to suss out what you need to know to enter the profession, and once you’re a proficient coder, it’s tiring to constantly investigate trending topics in tech.
We’ll keep this announcement short – we’ve moved Qvault.io to Boot.dev! As you know, we’ve been hard at work bootstrapping on online computer science bootcamp. Qvault (now Boot.dev) is a simple CS curriculum where our students build real projects using modern programming languages and technologies.
I’ve reviewed a lot of resumes, both as an engineering manager and in the monthly resume workshops we do in the Boot.dev Discord group. I’m convinced that these days a developer’s GitHub profile is just as important as their resume itself. If you haven’t started your first job yet, this advice is doubly important. Anyone looking to hire an entry-level developer is going to be diving into your public GitHub presence looking to get an idea for where your skill level is at.
JavaScript is undoubtedly one of the best languages to learn as a developer, whether you’ve been at it for years or are just starting out. More than 97% of today’s websites are powered by JavaScript. Regardless of what field you work in, you’ll likely be exposed to JavaScript at some point, as the language is firmly entrenched in the online world.
A good programming language is one that newcomers can learn fast. This is one of the reasons why JavaScript is so popular – it’s possible to learn Javascript quickly and with minimum fuss.
Anyone who’s anyone in the tech world has heard of Python. It’s one of the most popular programming languages in the world, and it’s been near the top of developer popularity rankings for years. Wired reported that it’s tied for second with Java behind JavaScript.
Golang was released in 2012, making it a relatively new language when compared to competitors like Python, which was released nearly two decades prior, yet it’s managed to stay ahead of the game as not only a coveted language by employers, but also loved by programmers.
JavaScript is one of the most versatile programming languages, maybe even more flexible than Python. JavaScript is used on both the front and back end of web systems. Because of that, of the 1.8 billion websites in the world, 95% of them use JavaScript. It’s hard to interact with the modern Internet, with its pretty graphics and interactive maps, without using JavaScript. Enable Marketing says the top four qualities of a visually appealing website are design and color, graphics and visuals, usability, and consistency. JavaScript is a major player in all four of those attributes.
Quick Answer: Python is one of the easiest coding languages to learn Python is arguably the easiest programming language for beginners to learn. If you’re interested in writing code, Python is a fantastic place to start. Aside from just being easy to learn, it’s also widely used by industry professionals so you really can’t go wrong.
Every coder is told to learn JavaScript, seeing that it’s the foundation of the world wide web. And… every coder is taught that C++ is one of the most useful modern coding languages to learn. So no matter if you’re brand new to the coding world, or you have a few languages under your belt, you might be wondering whether you should tackle JavaScript vs C++ for your first (or next) language.
We’re starting our first hackathon in the Qvault Discord server on January 17th at 8AM. Everyone is welcome to participate. Let’s go over the details about of event. You can RSVP for the event here.
Because I’ve had several inquiries on this topic, I thought it would be interesting to publish some information on how the boot.dev website and platform work, and how I’ve organized all the technologies I’m using. I’ll do my best to keep this list updated in the future as I migrate from older tools and technologies to newer ones, but assume that this might be a bit out of date by the time you read it.
If you’re looking to improve your coding, there are lots of steps you can take, but the first is focusing on Python best practices. It’s really important that your code is readable, testable, and maintainable. From picking good variable names, refactoring code that gets repeated out into its own method, or having clean and logical lines of inheritance and abstraction, there are a lot of qualities that differentiate code that someone wants to work with from code that everyone dreads having to maintain or develop further.