If you look at the Full-Stack Web Development Bootcamp industry, you rapidly realize that they have been teaching the same programming languages since the beginning.  When potential students ask about that, the academies quickly start undermining the role of the language by saying that it does not really matter - that you can switch fast from one to the other.

As a coding Bootcamp co-founder and head of the Academic and Technologies Department, this was also one of my first questions; I was creating our syllabus, but, as an experienced developer, that answer didn’t convince me.  Knowing how much technology evolves every 6 months, it’s IMPOSSIBLE that, after years of training, most of them haven’t significantly changed their syllabus.

I became obsessed: reading everywhere, asking colleagues and CTO’s that I knew had demonstrated great vision when picking their company’s stack of technologies, and I quickly started experimenting with different technologies to be taught and included in our syllabus.

4Geeks Academy Syllabus in Python and Javascript

Why Do Coding Bootcamps say that the language is not “that important”?

They teach you how to make web applications, and that most of the languages have similar features for that particular matter, and that it’s not that hard to change from one syntax to the other.  The stack of technologies included in a Syllabus actually matters.  It does, sorry.  We all know that.

But I believe that the reason that they are relentless to change is because - as a company - they’re already in the “growing phase”, and developing a new syllabus is basically creating a new product:

  1. You have to redo all the content (4Geeks has 500+ hours of projects, exercises, etc.).

  2. You need to hire new instructors or retrain the current ones.

  3. You have to test and measure how those changes may impact the performance of your students.

The truth is that, in the last 12 years, the web has evolved into a lot more than just web applications.  Now, coding languages have bigger purposes and they are seeking to enter into new paths (AI, VR, Machine learning, etc.).  Being aware of that, we decided to implement this syllabus.

For example, let's talk about functionality:

Most languages have an amazing web development framework (Django, Laravel, rails, etc.), but:

  1. The Ruby community has evolved into a new language called Elixir, and the adoption was not great.

  2. Python is excellent for web apps, and it has also taken over the Network, Big Data, Machine learning, and AI world.

  3. JavaScript has NOTHING to do with these other languages; it’s more descriptive.  JavaScript classes are different than Python classes, and it's changing so fast that you have to learn new tricks every month.

  4. C# is entirely different.  It's so merged with Visual Studio that it's impossible to replicate some of the functionalities in other languages.

Now, let's talk about some tools:

  1. Python is the fastest growing language because of tools like Pandas (which are amazing to deal with huge chunks of data).

  2. JavaScript is growing fast because now you can use NodeJS for the backend.  Now you can also have professional applications with frameworks like ReactJS that have NOTHING in common with their backend alternatives in Python, Ruby, PHP, etc.

  3. Java probably has the most mature set of tools used mainly for finance and massive transactional applications, ERP’s, etc.  To become a Senior Java Developer, you have to study for years to learn all those tools.  You end up speaking like an alien.

  4. C# is the chosen language for Unity, making it a clear path for game development. C# is also the main language on all the Microsoft applications in the enterprise world.

Note: None of these tools that I have mentioned have anything to do with each other, and they require a high level of specialty to master.  It’s not about the syntax but more about the architecture and the way those tools make you write code.

In conclusion

I can keep going all day, but I hope you get the idea.  I agree that syntax doesn’t matter, but the language does: you need to pick one, think about the tools and functionalities they provide in the long term, and, the industries and companies that gravitate around them.

4Geeks Academy Syllabus:

We encourage our team to rethink our syllabus every month, adding or removing whatever is needed to have the best product possible. We think having an up-to-date syllabus will increase our student's success and put us ahead of the competition at the same time. We invite you to read everything about our syllabus in this pdf.