A few years ago (2-3 at least) the majority of coding Bootcamps were teaching Ruby as their main language. I was sure that Ruby was a bad decision (see here why) and after weeks of consideration between several programming languages, even though Javascript was growing more than Python (thanks to Node.js), we decided to start teaching in Python at 4Geeks Academy. Here is why:
A coding Bootcamp goal is to help you get your first coding job
If you do a quick search on LinkedIn for coding jobs you will find lots of positions opened for Java, Javascript, and Python. Java is used in a very formal industry (banks, big enterprises, etc.) and those types of companies normally require “proprietary” certificates or formal/traditional degrees; and, as you may know, coding Bootcamps are not yet considered part of that group (and I might say that we are happy about it).
It's true that a Java software developer has a better chance to negotiate higher salaries; however, Python is used by more companies and industries because of its versatility. The real challenge for coding bootcamp graduates is getting hired the first time. The second one is 1000% easier and your salary will begin to rise faster after your first year of experience.
But what about Javascript? It can be used as a backend language with Node.js, and while it keeps thriving, its growth rate has decreased during the past 2 years, leaving Python as the king of backend jobs.
A coding Bootcamp goal is to teach you how to code really fast
Python is used by MIT to teach coding because it has a very simple and clean syntax: No semicolons, not braces, etc. 90% of junior developers errors are closing braces or missing semicolons.
It is almost like speaking in English: Reading a python code it’s a lot easier than other languages because its syntax is closer to English.
Also, Python does not require much code to complete something. You don't have to declare data-types or write 40 lines of code just for a Hello World (like in Java) but it is also formal enough to respect data types. Javascript proud's itself for being flexible with data-types and that makes it more propense to bugs, slowing down your learning process because you encounter more issues/bugs in your code.
A coding bootcamp needs to teach what is being used
According to some reports (W3Techs, Similartech, and many other market research firms), Node JS is only used in 0.3% of the web. On the other hand, PHP rules the web with 80% of the market. However, when you think about software in general, Python rules all the other industries, being used by almost every enterprise in the world and everyone trying to experiment with machine learning, AI, etc. That means almost every company in the world according to Forbes.
Python has it all
Basically, after analyzing all the data and taking into consideration multiple factors, it is almost a no brainer choosing Python as one of our main components within our Stack in 4Geeks. It is our humble opinion to strongly encourage any academic institution out there to follow the world leaders and finally adopt Python as their backend language for teaching code.