Posts about Coding
Virtual Reality vs. (or with) Augmented Reality
August 9, 2017Virtual Reality and its relatives Mixed Reality and Augmented Reality are exciting, powerful technologies that have all gained a lot of attention in the past year. The question is, what do they all mean?
What are Virtual Reality, Mixed Reality and Augmented Reality?
Many people have not yet had an opportunity to try one or more of these technologies. There’s much overlap in these terms as well, which can make the learning process more confusing.
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…)
Find The Right Bootcamp For You
May 16, 2017With more than 10,700 jobs added in the last year, Michigan’s tech industry is booming. If you’ve ever dreamed about taking a coding bootcamp and pursuing a career as a web developer, then now is the perfect time to take the first step. But how do you get started?
Having trained more than 650 developers, our staff has a lot of experience when it comes to helping people find the right program to fit their personal experience and professional goals. Just like programming languages, no two bootcamps are the same. It is important that you choose a program that is going to give you the best return on your investment. So if you’re looking to start a new career in tech this year, we have a few pointers from our staff. (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.
Since its introduction back in 2000, C# has been gaining a lot popularity, although it is fairly new when compared to other popular programming languages ––– such as Java and C++. I have been using C# since its introduction, and I really enjoy coding with it. I have used it to develop many web, mobile and desktop applications.
Here are my top 5 Reasons on why you Should Learn C#:
1. It’s Easy to Start With
If you choose C# as your first programming language, you can pick up a lot of concepts easily enough. Setting up a hello project is very intuitive. As one of the most popular programming languages, you will have a ton of material on the internet that can help you resolve problems and errors in your code (keep reading to learn more about this). This can be extremely helpful if you just started to learn a new programming language. Plus, Visual Studio (which you use to write C# – see point #3!) is an amazingly powerful and incredibly helpful tool. If you already know Java, C or C++, C# will be fairly easy to learn, as many of the basic program structures and statements are similar.
2. The Ability to Develop Many Kinds of Apps on Several Operating Systems
Through many years, I developed many apps using C#, such as web, desktop, mobile, robot (Lego Mindstorms) applications as well as games (Unity) and REST APIs. C# can be your one-stop shop for all of those applications, so you won’t need to learn a new language to develop a different kinds of applications. This means it has a lot of practicality when developing.
3. Large Availability of Powerful Development Tools
One of the biggest selling points of .NET(C#) is that Microsoft provides a wide suite of powerful tools that can help programmers develop better programs. The most important of all of those tools is by far Visual Studio. Visual Studio is a very powerful and rich Integrated Development Environment (IDE) that provides a wide set of tools to support program development, testing and debugging, performance analysis, version control, deployment, and much more. Visual Studio is a beginning programmer’s best friend.
4. Microsoft has Your Back!
Microsoft is constantly adding new features to the language. Microsoft also provided support for seamless integration with other Microsoft technologies, such as Microsoft SQL server, cloud computing, Azure dep
loyment and many more. Having these features makes the language more versatile, easy to learn and increases its usability.
5. Popularity
If you Google “the most popular programming languages,” C# will be most certainly be one of the top five most commonly used languages. This means that you will find many resources, books, tutorials, videos and more to help you learn C#. Microsoft has a training website, Microsoft’s Virtual Academy, that offers many courses for beginner developers. Other popular sites that provide tutorials include Pluralsight, LearnCS.org, and Complete C# Tutorial.
Many companies use C# to develop applications, such as Quicken Loans, Domino’s Pizza, Sears, NBC news website and many more. (Learn more about this in our blog 5 Companies that use .NET)
I hope that those reasons are enough to convince you to start learning C#! See you on stackoverflow.com! ☺
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…)
How To Be Successful In A Coding Bootcamp
July 14, 2016You’ve committed the next ten weeks of your life to coding bootcamp. Tuition is paid, software is downloaded, pre-work is submitted…now what?
In order to be successful in a Coding Bootcamp, you have to understand that it’s so much more than just showing up at 9am and going home at 5pm. Our most successful students are the ones who truly dedicate themselves to the program and are fully committed to the opportunity to kickstarting an amazing new career. Here are some tips on how to get the most out of your time at Grand Circus:
8 Tips to Being Successful in a Coding Bootcamp
Treat it like a job opportunity
You wouldn’t show up late to a job three times a week. You wouldn’t wear sweatpants to work (unless, of course, it’s Pajama Day). You wouldn’t leave a project incomplete. You wouldn’t opt out of professional development opportunities.
Come in with the mentality that this is a job and treat it as such: be on time, be professional, finish your labs, do the readings, ask for extra challenges, take that second round mock interview even though it was optional, and aim to be the best student in the class. Bootcamp is an eight-week interview, and you’ll be on your way to is landing a job and having a career that you love.
(more…)
7 Reasons to Attend Grand Circus’ Next Demo Day
May 18, 2016Whether you’re a prospective student, a company looking for a developer or a community member just interested in cool things happening in Detroit, you won’t want to miss this!
Here are 7 reasons why this is an event you wouldn’t want to miss!
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.