Our biggest content release ever just dropped: the complete backend learning path, but now in Python and TypeScript! This is a massive update that we’ve been working on for a year, I hope you enjoy it!
Lane
Patch notes 🔗
1. New Python/TypeScript Backend Path is Live 🔗
I know you’re all familiar with our first learning path: Backend Development in Python and Go. It’s still our flagship learning path, and we’ll keep updating it, and it remains the default for new learners. However, we’ve just finished creating a new version of the path where all the Go courses (the latter back-end specific half) have been converted to TypeScript.
There’s massive demand for TypeScript knowledge out there, and we want to make sure that the option to learn it is available on Boot.dev. Aside from the later courses being available in TypeScript, things like:
- Learn HTTP Clients in TypeScript
- Learn HTTP Servers in TypeScript
- Learn File Servers and CDNs in TypeScript
- etc
There are also two brand new language specific courses:
These are frankly, pretty massive courses, each weighing in at 15 chapters and over 100 lessons. They’re designed for developers, which is why the Python section of the learning path is considered a prerequisite.
2. New Dashboard View 🔗
In the past, the backend learning path page kinda doubled as a dashboard view. It was a frankenstein thing where we it acted as a landing page for the learning path, but also tried to show you your progress, achievements, items, etc.
We’ve done away with that! Each learning path (of which there are now 2, of course) has its own page, but its really just a landing page of sorts for the path. An info page, if you will.
The new dashboard view is your default page when you log in to Boot.dev, and it’s designed to be a much more focused view into your progess, your goals, where you’ve been, where you’re going, etc. For example, it has your streak, quests and potions front and center so that each time you start a session, you know where you stand.
3. Leagues 🔗
Way back when, the Leaderboard was actually the favorite “game mechanic” on the platform, at least according to most of our community members. As Boot.dev has grown so fast in popularity, it’s become… less and less useful.
The trouble is that there are so many people on the platform now, that the leaderboard is dominated by experienced developers speedrunning the courses for fun. It doesn’t give the new learners a chance.
Leagues fix this. When you hit level 10, you’ll join a new league for the next 4 weeks. Your league only has 25 learners in it, and your leaderboard is scoped mostly to your league. This means that you can actually compete with your peers, and not just the top 10% of the platform. Your league also resets, so in the chance that you got stuck with someone who is just crushing it, you get a fresh start the next month.
4. Spellbook UI Update 🔗
We’ve been listening intently to all the feedback about spellbooks, and have made some big UI/UX changes. See, spellbooks have turned out to be incredibly popular (remember, they’re essentially unlockable, searchable cheatsheets). The trouble has been that once you have more than ~30 pages, it got hard to find what you were looking for.
The new spellbook UI looks like this:
Notable changes are:
- The lesson that unlocked the page is shown next to the page title
- You can filter by language/technology
- By default all pages are shown, and you can paginate through them, the searchbar just changes the order of the pages, surfacing what you want more quickly
5. New course catalogue page 🔗
Now that we have two learning paths, we needed a single place to search all the content on the platform. The new Course Catalogue solves this. It’s a simple page with all the courses that you can search and filter.
6. Miscellaneous improvements 🔗
- Optional lessons have been made required
bootdevCLI speed improvements- Checkbox in-lesson interactions are simpler and more intuitive
- New visuals for “danger”, “warn”, “tip”, and “info” callouts in lesson text
What is yet to come 🔗
- League UI/UX updates
- A “build an AI agent” guided project
- A new product… that is totally secret for now, but that has something to do with optional challenges being removed
- Walkthroughs of the JS/TS courses
New YouTube Videos 🔗
We publish our explainer videos and course walkthroughs on our YouTube channel for free! Here are the latest videos:
