Boot.dev Blog ยป News ยป Boot.dev Beat: October 2022 Edition
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Boot.dev Beat: October 2022 Edition

By Lane Wagner on Oct 31, 2022

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Happy Halloween! We released a ton of new stuff on Boot.dev this October, and I’ve had a blast figuring out new mediums and tools we can use to create content. Anyhow, here’s to a great November glass clink. If you ever want to connect with me personally you can just reply here, I’d love to chat.

All the best, Lane.

New stuff from Boot.dev this October ๐Ÿ”—

  1. “Build a Local Dev Environment” project

We are super excited about this new project tutorial. One of my biggest struggles in school was that I didn’t have a local dev setup that worked well. This tutorial will have you up and running with a simple yet professional suite of tools.

  1. Quests

We’ve noticed that some learning platforms have things like “calendar reminders” and “learning goals”. Those features are useful but dreadfully boring. We just added weekly quests as a more exciting way to gain bonus XP for hitting your learning goals, and they even boost your position on the leaderboard!

  1. Blackboard videos

We’ve started creating blackboard videos for some of the more visually demanding topics in the courses on Boot.dev. Those videos are going up on YouTube (feel free to subscribe to our channel), but are also embedded into course instructions. Here are a few examples:

  1. New chapter on generics added to Learn Go

Generics are a newly released feature in Go (as of version 1.18). We just added a new chapter to the “Learn Go” course that covers exactly how they work and how to use them in the wild!

  1. 156 Improvement tickets implemented

At the bottom-left of each exercise on Boot.dev there is a “report issue” tab. We receive tons of amazing feature requests, ideas for content improvements, and even bug reports through that channel. This month we resolved and made improvements for 156 of those reports! Thanks for all the amazing feedback.

Boot.dev Learner Interview: Theo Beers ๐Ÿ”—

theo beers profile

Hey everyone, I’m Theo! I grew up in the Hartford Connecticut area, and for the last few years I’ve been working in academia. I got into programming during my PhD program mostly to just “automate the boring stuff”.

When I joined Boot.dev last spring, I was looking to fill in any foundational gaps in my CS knowledge. Being self taught, I wanted to learn the core CS material that you’d pick up during a traditional degree, but without going back to school. Since then I’ve completed everything on Boot.dev, and it’s made me a much more well-rounded programmer. Learning foundational concepts and a couple new coding languages (Python and Go) has made me much more confident in my abilities. I also need to mention how great the Discord server has been; I’ve found some incredibly supportive friends there.

The big news this month is that I’m in the middle of transitioning into my first professional developer job! I’m working for the same university I was employed with previously, but now I’m building software. I’m not sure how long I’ll stay in academia, but this new position will open doors for me for a future in tech.

– Theo Beers

Join us in the Boot.dev Community Discord ๐Ÿ”—

Theo, myself, and hundreds of other learners are active in the Boot.dev community Discord. Join our programming discussions, ask for help when you get stuck, and improve your understanding by explaining what you know to help out others!

Top picks from the interwebs ๐Ÿ”—

(Video) Go is faster than Rust??! Go vs Rust vs TypeScript Servers ๐Ÿ”—

by ThePrimeagen

(Article) How to Build Software like an SRE ๐Ÿ”—

by Brandon Willett

(Article) How we use binary search to find compiler bugs ๐Ÿ”—

by Max Bernstein

(Article) Makefiles to improve your life ๐Ÿ”—

by Casper Andersson

Top plugs ๐Ÿ”—

Trends in Developer Jobs: A Meta Analysis of Stack Overflow Surveys

by Lane Wagner

Full-Stack Ops: Back-end and DevOps Roles are Merging

by Lane Wagner

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