Posts about Coding Languages
Programming Languages: Which Should I Learn?
December 5, 2018Interested in learning to code? Determining which of the many languages to learn can be challenging, but we’re here to help!
For our potential career changing students: we encourage making a list of companies you ideally would like to work for and research what language they hire for. However, once you learn one language, it’s easier to learn others!
Front-End vs. Back-End (Java & C# .NET)
- In our Front-End Bootcamps, we teach JavaScript
- We have two Back-End Bootcamps, where you will learn either Java or C# .NET
Below, two of our staff members share their experiences to give you a better sense of what type of projects are involved with both front-end and back-end.
Yasmine, Admissions and Learning Team Administrator
David, Java & JavaScript Instructor
Front-End Languages
“When I was a front-end developer in digital marketing, I did a great deal with HTML and CSS, solving logic puzzles about how best to get the site to look right for different browsers and screen sizes. Front-end tends to be a more finicky about pixels and compatibility with a variety of browsers. It requires more compromise and maybe frustration, but it’s also more visual and creative.” -David
“The Front-End bootcamp is heavily focused on the visual and client-side aspect of a website. This refers to what the user sees and interacts with. While we do teach some server-side “back-end” Javascript, we also touch on the UX and UI of a website, and how to develop a site from a provided design. All the code that you create and data that you have access to needs to be accessible by the user and they need to be able to accomplish their goal on the site in an easy and friendly way. You’ll also have to be passionate about having everyone be able to access a website on any platform/screen size and have responsive layout” -Yasmine
Back-End Languages
“As a back-end developer in digital marketing, I did a lot with using websites to manage data. It involved websites, databases, security, networks, APIs, and server configuration. Back-end tends to be more straightforward with more clear right/wrong answers. Sometimes you have to think more about large-scale problems like managing parallel servers and databases and optimizing performance.” -David
Want to try these out? Here are a few of GC’s free favorites:
- Javascript – The Basics for Beginners @ Udemy
- Learn Java Online @ LearnJavaOnline.org
- Try C# .NET Core @ Code School
Introduction to GitHub (Video Series)
July 31, 2018If you’re excited to be a programmer, you’ll need to know how to use version control.
Don’t know what version control is? Check out this blog post to learn more.
You’ll also want to learn the latest and greatest tools available to make you a more effective developer. Git and GitHub have transformed web-development workflow and made it a lot easier to collaborate. (more…)
What’s Up with Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality
September 7, 2017Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) don’t exist independently of each other. Rather, both are points (or ranges) along a continuum. Augmented Reality is at one end (with low immersion, or high inclusion of physical reality) and Virtual Reality at the other end (with high immersion, or complete exclusion of physical reality).
Enhanced Reality
We may see the terms “Augmented” and “Virtual” Reality go away as more people gain experience with these technologies, and witness the overlap and connections between the two; we may see a term such as Enhanced Reality come into being as the entire spectrum with specific technologies clustering at different points along the spectrum. Already some devices offer support for both, including the Michigan-based Immy Inc. whose headset includes an LCD panel to block vision for VR, or goes clear for Mixed Reality. (more…)
Detroit Codes Harder
July 21, 2017Since the beginning of 2016, we’ve exposed over 1,800 individuals to coding through our free Intro to Coding Workshops. The Intro to Coding Workshops are part of a much longer history and much deeper effort. While many of us are doing our best, the tech industry remains no stranger to recurring patterns of discrimination and inequitable practices. We’ve known for a long time that if you’re going to be in tech, “you have to want to” (thanks for the empowering words Michelle Obama!) break those narratives. Inspired by our beloved Detroiters, we began the hustle. (more…)
5 Reasons You Should Learn C#
February 27, 2017Our lead instructor, Kamel Rushaidat, Ph.D., shares insights on why he loves C# and why others should learn the programing language. If you are looking for an explanation of what C# is, hop over to our blog 10 Things to Know About the .NET Programming Language.
One question that comes mind when people are trying to learn programming for the first time is “What language should I start learning first?” There are a lot of options out there, and we teach a few tracks in our coding bootcamps, but I think that C# would have been my very first choice if it has been around when I started to learn coding. (more…)
Resolving Git Conflicts from the Command Line
September 8, 2016One of the most challenging yet common activities development teams run into with Git is resolving merge conflicts. This happens when multiple developers are making changes in a repository at the same time.
This post provides a walkthrough of how to get through two typical Git conflict scenarios. To set the scene, Grant and I are two developers working on a simple web page. We’re starting out with two files, index.html and styles.css. Our repository is hosted at GitHub, and in this case we are both working directly on the master branch.
5 Michigan Companies that use .NET
August 4, 2016
At Grand Circus, we know that people want to know where they’ll be able to use their skills once the bootcamp is over. One of the awesome things about learning .NET at Grand Circus is that there are lots of local companies that use this framework every day right in our own neighborhood. Here’s a brief sample of a few companies that use .NET where bootcamp graduates could possibly work.
Quicken Loans
Located just down the road from Grand Circus, Quicken Loans is an online mortgage lender that employs hundreds of developers. Quicken Loans was recently listed as one of the top 5 places to work in America by Forbes. The company has a large development team, so there are tons of seasoned developers to learn from as bootcamp graduates grow in their careers. Dozens of Grand Circus alumni currently work for Quicken Loans in a variety of positions—everything from interns to software developers!
10 Things to Know About the .NET Framework
July 22, 2016If you are considering becoming a .NET developer through our .NET (C#) Development Bootcamp, here are 10 things to know about the language you should know before you embark on our bootcamp:
1. I heard that .NET was only for Windows or PC users. Is that true?
Not anymore! Thanks to .NET Core, a set of tools consisting of the runtime, library and compiler components, you can create apps that run on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. .NET Core runtime, libraries, and compiler are all open source on GitHub and are taking contributions. (more…)
10 Things You Can Build with JavaScript
April 22, 2016According to a recent survey conducted by Stack Overflow, JavaScript is the most popular language on earth. What is interesting about these survey results, is that even for developers whose primary responsibility is the back-end (server-side code) they are still more likely to research questions about JavaScript than any other language. That’s largely because JavaScript is inescapable. Ask any of our Java or .NET bootcampers and they will tell you that for their final projects they had to get to a basic level of proficiency with JavaScript. This is also true in the working world. Any teams that do not have dedicated front-end developers, have to do it themselves.
Atwood’s Law states that: “Any application that can be written in JavaScript, will eventually be written in JavaScript.”
Jeff Atwood was making a joke at JavaScript’s expense, but it has turned out to be more true than not. With advances in browser technology and JavaScript having moved into the server with NodeJS, JavaScript is capable of so much more than it was just a few years ago. Here’s a quick run-down of what you can do with JavaScript. Some of it is pretty obvious, other things less so.
10 Things You Can Build with JavaScript
My Top 5 Tools for Building Websites
April 7, 2016You know that a website is made with HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Maybe you even know how to write in all three of those languages and put them together into a site, but something’s missing. Developers are supposed to be lazy, right? If all you’re using is plain old HTML, CSS and JavaScript to build more than the very simplest of projects, you’re doing too much work. Tools help us use solutions that already exist for common problems every developer faces. They let us strip out a lot of “coding overhead” and get down to the nitty gritty of actually writing our apps.
