DEV Community: CoderFoundry

5 Project Ideas for your Portfolio

CoderFoundry — Fri, 07 Aug 2020 18:17:06 +0000

We are big advocates for building projects to put on your portfolio to help you get a job. The projects listed below will give you diversity in project types and allow you to demonstrate a lot of skill and expertise in order to increase your chances of landing a software development job.

They all incorporate some key criteria we think are important for portfolio projects:

They solve a business problem.
They implement security (Authorization/Authentication).
They have a database backend.

Here are five project ideas you can add to your development portfolio.

1. Bug Tracker

A Bug Tracker is very familiar to a Hiring Manager. They will use something similar within their organization. They are familiar with its functionality and know what features should be present within this kind of application.

A Bug Tracker allows someone to submit a defect found in software. That defect is assigned to a developer who works on the issue then pushes the ticket onto a production team member who rolls the fix out into the application. This is a workflow, or issue tracking system, around software defects.

We think the Bug Tracker is the essential project you should have on your portfolio.

2. Blog

Your blog needs to have the ability to allow you as the owner to author content, contain rich editing features (bold, underline, links...), an authentication system stopping just anyone from submitting posts, and a role for other users to be able to submit comments on your posts.

It may seem odd that we suggest building a blogging application with things like Medium, Dev.to & WordPress, being so popular. You can use those platforms to write a shorter form version of your blog post that points back to the main blog post on your own blog site.

Imagine if you have 20 posts that all point back to your blog and in turn points back to your portfolio. This will make your portfolio rank high when searching for your name or even in some cases for certain technologies, like ".NET MVC".

Building a blog not only shows your coding skills but also builds your brand as a developer.

3. Financial Portal

This is a piece of software like Mint.com or Quicken Money. This application tracks transactions from your credit card or bank accounts and basically tracks your incomes and your expenses. A financial Portal allows you to put those incomes and expenses into categories so you can see how much you are spending on certain things (e.g. groceries or gas).

The reason we recommend this project, like the Bug Tracker, every hiring manager has used software like this to manage their own personal finances. If you show them a piece of software that's easy to use, and something they would use themselves, they are going to think the programmer that wrote the software will also bring value to their company or organization.

4. Inventory Control System

An inventory control system allows a company to receive shipments, which could be parts, products, or services, and turn around and sell those parts, products, or services.

A company needs to track those costs as they come in and apply them to sales, using something like a "job costing report" showing the costs against the sales. This is an essential tool to a lot of businesses.

Creating an inventory control system shows you can solve a complex business problem familiar to most companies.

5. Work Order System

The most familiar version of this kind of application would be a cable repair system.

A person calls the cable company when their cable is out. That creates a ticket for a technician to be dispatched to repair the issue. That ticket contains details of the problem and an address.

The big feature in this kind of system is geo-location, allowing maybe turn-by-turn directions provided to the technician or finding the closest technician available to the location based on their current location.

Many companies use similar systems, so again, the Hiring Manager could be familiar with the kind of functionality provided by this kind of application.

Summary

Including one or more of these projects on your developer portfolio will increase your chances of getting that first software development job.

While we're talking mainly about web development projects here many of these have logical versions that could be developed for mobile or desktop.

If you're interested in Coder Foundry as a bootcamp check us out at coderfoundry.com to get all the details you need to get started.

Coding, Concussions, or Country Music?

CoderFoundry — Thu, 20 Feb 2020 16:20:54 +0000

Who makes more money a coder or a professional NFL football player?

This seems like an easy question, and most people would probably say an NFL player, but they would be wrong!

First, let's look at the opportunity. Do you know how many people make it to the NFL? Only 256 each year.

Just over 1 Million people play high-school football.
73,557 of those, go on to play NCAA football (divisions I, II & III).
16,346 of those, are draft eligible.
256 are drafted into the NFL.

In the world of coding, there are projected to be 424,000 new software jobs in 2020. That's not even close!

Let's talk about $$$.

At the high end, the top-paid athlete in the world, Lionel Messi, earned $127M in 2018. What does a top paid coder earn? Many many times that...just look at Mark Zuckerburg (Facebook) & Jack Dorsey (Twitter/Square).

Then at the other end, a run-of-the-mill athlete either can't break-in or is making a small amount playing semi-professionally. A run-of-the-mill coder is making $100k, has 4 weeks vacation, and a 401k with employer match.

The opportunities and incentives are in learning to code!

How and why to publish with Netlify

CoderFoundry — Tue, 20 Aug 2019 13:29:22 +0000

You have an awesome looking portfolio or a killer web app but it's just sitting in your Git repo. A prospective hiring manager or recruiter isn't able (or possibly technically capable) of cloning the repo and getting it up and running to see all your hard work.

You need to publish it to a URL!! Something that just works.

Bobby Davis will show you how to take your project from GitHub and publish it to Netlify for FREE.

Destiny Zero Hour - a Javascript Coding Project

CoderFoundry — Fri, 16 Aug 2019 19:51:24 +0000

We combined our love of the Destiny video game and our day job teaching people to code at Coder Foundry and created a Destiny themed coding project partially based on an in-game maze puzzle.

We figured there may be a few other devs/Destiny fans that find it as interesting as we did.

The MANY things you can build with C# and .NET

CoderFoundry — Thu, 01 Aug 2019 15:08:21 +0000

We talked to a lot of aspiring Software Developers online and in-person, and we come across many variations of the same question:

What should I be learning now?

We have a specific take on that, and we want to cover that today. We think new developers should learn C# and the .NET framework.

Now .NET is developed by Microsoft and is a framework that allows you to create many different types of software. It has a lot of features, and it's very broad, very robust, and very scalable.

The most popular language you use to write on top of the .NET framework is C#.

C# is the best language to learn to break into the tech industry, and the language that sets you up for the future, because of the different types of software you can build on the platform.

That means once you learn this language, you can break-in, and then you can follow your hopes and dreams and passions by building other projects as well.

The video takes a deep dive into the following uses of C# and .NET:

Full Stack Web Development with ASP.net
Real time communications with Signal R
Mobile Development with Xamarin
Desktop Applications with WPF and UWP
Services & Micro-Services with Azure services
Game Development with Unity, Cryengine, and more
AI and Machine Learning with Azure services
Internet of Things with UWP

No Matter Your Career Goals, C# and .NET have you covered

Not only is the stack with the most entry-level job openings, but it's the technology that can be used to build the software of the future.

Is C# Dying?

CoderFoundry — Thu, 18 Jul 2019 18:46:46 +0000

Many new developers confuse C# with C and C++, or think the language is only used in the enterprise to maintain legacy apps.

Bobby Davis dispels the myths around C# and makes the case that it's a good language to have in your toolbelt.

Is C# Hard to Learn?

CoderFoundry — Wed, 17 Jul 2019 18:29:09 +0000

Highlights:

All programming languages are "hard" to learn
So... choose a coding language like C# that is in demand with employers
Why Bobby Davis reluntantly learned C#
How to learn C#, fast

How to Go the Extra Mile When Solving a Coding Challenge

CoderFoundry — Fri, 28 Jun 2019 14:17:11 +0000

How would you solve this coding challenge?

Given a list of numbers and a number k, return whether any two numbers from the list add up to k. For example, given [10, 15, 3, 7] and k of 17, return true since 10 + 7 is 17. Bonus can you do this in one pass

Watch Bobby Davis not just solve the coding challenge, but provide you with a strategy of presenting your process. Do this during a technical interview and you'll win your next Software Developer job.

1 Coding Project Idea That Will Get You a Software Development Job

CoderFoundry — Wed, 29 May 2019 20:13:09 +0000

Bobby Davis lays out a multi-step process for building a job-winning project.

He explains that your project should include:

coding patterns, like MVC
an attractive UI
a database and demonstration of CRUD
a solution to a business problem

Bobby advises that you should build your project in a thoughtful way:

create an SRS with all of the project's features
break out your plan into weekly sprints
track your progress and bugs in an issue tracker

Lastly, when you are in a job interview, proactively demo your application, and show the employer your SRS and bug tracker.

This is how you build a project that can win you a job!

Should I Get a Master's Degree in Computer Science?

CoderFoundry — Thu, 18 Apr 2019 23:22:35 +0000

Ali Spittel wrote on Twitter:

Ali Spittel 🐞

@aspittel

Opinions on getting a masters in CS for people who have already been employed in the industry for a while?

For some reason, I've always wanted to get one, but I also think in a lot of ways it would just be a piece of paper.

🤔

00:58 AM - 16 Apr 2019

52 578

Bobby Davis shared a story of when he wanted to get a Master's degree in Computer Science, even though he owned three software companies.

He warns that his advice to Ali is different for aspiring developers.

5 Steps to Your 1st Software Development Job

CoderFoundry — Thu, 11 Apr 2019 16:59:25 +0000

Studying to be a Software Developer is hard.

There's no standard, no roadmap for breaking in.

If you're an accountant or lawyer, then you work towards taking a test - the CPA or bar exam - then you apply to jobs.

It doesn't work that way for developers.

There's no test. There's no certification or license. Everyone you speak to has a slighlty different story about how they got started.

And that's a good thing. It means that no matter what you're background is, there's no artificial barrier stopping you from becoming a professional developer. If you have the apitude and grit, you can learn how to code.

The downside is to reach your goal you have to wade through a swamp of conflicting advice about what to study and what to build.

The danger is that bad advice will set you back and erode the confidence and energy you need to master a difficult subject - software development.

And that's why I created the 5 Steps to Your First Dev Job.

I wanted to find a way to give aspiring coders my hard earned perspective so they will have clairty and confidence on their journey.

I'm not interested in the coding language wars, or gatekeeping. I'm also not interested in the technology hype cycle or selling false hopes.

My view is based on being a Software Engineer for over two decades and creating three software companies. I've hired, fired, and managed CS grads and self-taught developers.

I've pitched to clients and investors. And I've been pitched to by investors and vendors.

Some of my advice to aspiring careerists may seems contrarian, but that's not on purpose.

I'm just sharing what has worked for me, my employees, and now the students who attend my school, Coder Foundry.

And now, I hope it helps you.

Bobby Davis, founder

Should You Learn C# in 2019?

CoderFoundry — Mon, 25 Mar 2019 20:18:46 +0000

(Watch the video version https://youtu.be/ZUgNy-okDQ4)

Choosing a programming language is really hard for a beginner.

If you’re already working as a developer it’s easy. Whatever project you have at work determines the languages and tools you pick up next.

But what if you are a beginner?

There’s no one telling you what to learn. And you don’t want to mess up and study a language today that will be abandoned tomorrow.

So you go to Google and search “Popular programming languages”. And Google gives you back 104 million results.

(That’s the actually number by the way. 100 and 4 million!)

So you wade through a couple of results and you see that one blogger says “Ruby is the best programming language”. But another blogger says “Ruby is dying!”

No wonder so many aspiring devs I talk to are so confused.

There are more people writing articles about their code than writing code!

I call these people SPITRs - the Smartest Person In The Room. (And I don’t mean that as a compliment). To a SPITR no technology is ever cool enough. There’s always something more “cutting edge” to try.

When you ask a SPITR which programming language to study, they don’t really want to help you. They just want to make themselves look smart, by making you look dumb.

That’s why I say, when you talk to a SPITR, you end up wet!

I’m going to help you decide if C# is the right language to study.

But this won’t be like the 104 million articles in Google. I’m not going to tell you about how beautiful the C# syntax is, or how welcoming the community is. I won’t confuse you with a lot of jargon, or tell you if C# is open source or not.

I’m different.

I run a software company. We make money by building stable, reliable software. What’s cool to me is being paid to use my talent to create powerful software solutions. If that sounds cool to you, then you’re in the right place.

Now I do need to explain two things first.

Number one: when a general purpose programming language like C# is used to build web applications, it almost always used within a framework, or stack.

So, C# and Microsoft’s .NET framework go hand in hand.

If you learn C# and you want to build web software, then you’ll also learn the languages and tooling around NET.

So, don’t ask should I learn C# or Javascript or SQL? If you learn .NET you’ll learn all three. It’s just that each language plays a specific role in the architectural pattern of your software project.

The next thing to know is that C# and .NET were created by Microsoft and are popular in the enterprise. But don’t let the word “enterprise” scare you. That just means large or B2B businesses.

For example, I created a software company that battles bank fraud.

Our software was used by financial institutions around the country, and we were named one of the fastest growing private companies in America (four years in a row, by the way).

I created the software using C# and .NET.

That’s a common story. A lot of the behind the scenes software you use every day runs on C#.

So just because consumer facing companies like Uber and Airbnb don’t use .NET and C#, doesn’t mean that it isn’t popular and trusted.

Banks, airlines, construction companies, and sports leagues - .NET and C# is popular with all of them. The developers at these companies are too busy writing software to write an article about writing software!

Now, C# didn’t get adopted by these companies by accident.

And here’s the part you really need to understand. C# was invented by Microsoft in the year 2000. Two years later the NY Times reported that Microsoft spent “five million hours of labor and $2 billion dollars” getting the new language into the hands of developers.

Here’s why that should matter to you. Microsoft will never let C# become obsolete. The second largest company in the world is heavily invested in making sure
that C# developers are always viable in the marketplace.

But truth be told, Microsoft could fail and bring down C# with it. Any tech could fail.

So let’s focus on right now. Is C# good to learn this year?

The answer is still yes.

Course Report is a news site that covers coding bootcamps. They did a study of coding bootcamps across the country and found something surprising.

Let me quote this word for word: “Students who learned C# were the most likely to be employed as a developer after graduation”

Now, why is that? Why are coding bootcamps graduates with C# skills getting jobs at such a high rate?

It’s not because .NET and C# have so many stars on Github. And it’s not because .NET has a cool logo.

Coding bootcamp graduates get hired at a high rate because enterprise companies hire junior devs. If you want to get hired fast, learn C# and apply to a large company. They need devs for all sorts of work..

In the past these companies outsourced their overflow of work overseas. But now they’re seeing bootcamp graduates enter the marketplace, and they’re snatching them up as fast as they can.

Here’s a test: Go to indeed.com and type in “.NET developer”.

Then filter the results by “entry level” positions.

I just looked and there are 1,860 entry level .NET jobs available. That’s more than any other stack.

Just to compare, I also searched “Rails developer”. I found 1,935 jobs. So there are as many junior .NET job opening as total Rails jobs.

Now, beyond the enterprise companies, you have startups that sell to them. And they need C# devs too. My companies sold software and services to large firms. We specialized in .NET because that’s what our clients wanted.

I know several programming languages. But I’ve made the most money from .NET.

So, why should you learn C#? The best reason is that .NET and C# is what what’s your first job will want to see on your resume.

Think about it this way. Let’s say you worked at a company. And that company got purchased by a Chinese firm. So now you have a new boss, and your new boss only speaks Cantonese. Now guess what language you should study? Cantonese!

It’s really that simple.

We had a student at Coder Foundry who really impressed me.

His name is Evan and he lives in Portland. He earned his degree in Political Science, but even during his studies he wanted to be a software developer.

However, like any aspiring developer, he didn’t know which programming language to study. Should he do C#? Should he do something else? He wasn’t sure.

His next step was different than what most people do. He didn’t go on Reddit and ask a bunch of strangers which programming language to study. And he didn’t look up the tech that runs his favorite app and choose that.

Instead he went to about 4 different tech employers in his area and said, “Hey, I am studying to be a developer. Which technologies do you use?”Evan says that over and over again he heard it was .NET and C#.

So Evan looked up .NET coding bootcamps and found Coder Foundry. He relocated and we taught him how to code. Now he’s back in Portland, working remotely, writing code for a consulting company.

Evan did his research the right way. He found out which coding language employers like me are hiring for. Now here’s the last reason you should learn C#.

Remember what I said about Microsoft being determined to keep C# viable?

Well, you see that in all of the technology that uses C#.

You can build games with Unity. You can build AR applications for Halolens. You can build desktop software. You can build iPhone and Android apps with Xamarin.

Internet-of-things, cloud services, and machine learning - .NET and C# has your covered.

So let’s recap.

Will learning C# future-proof your career? No, nothing will. But Microsoft is determined to make sure your skill are in high demand.

Are C# and .NET devs in demand today? Yes. Especially for junior positions.

There’s is no better language and stack to know than C# and .NET. And what if you have other interests like game development? Well, C# is still a smart bet.

I hope that clears up any confusion. And you didn’t have to read 104 million articles to get clarity.

Now stop researching, and get to coding.

That’s the best way to prove who is really the smartest person in the room.