This blog post is to help prospective students decide which Web Development Bootcamp (C#/.NET or Python/Django) is right for them. To compare our Software Engineering Program, which heavily focuses on server-side development in Java, to our Web Development Bootcamp, please visit this blog post.
A question we hear often is “which server-side tech stack should I take? At NSS we teach two different server-side tech stacks - C#/.NET and Python/Django. Both of these languages and their associated libraries & frameworks are popular in the Nashville job market as well as nationally. And both give you experience using SQL, the standard language for accessing data stored in relational databases.
In short, no. The foundational concepts you’ll learn are universal. The technologies are important and may influence what companies would hire you for your first job, but both are widely used in Nashville and nationally. If you don’t know which one you want to learn, our recommendation is that you apply for the first open bootcamp that you could attend. At NSS, you’ll learn more than just how to code, you’ll discover how you learn new languages and frameworks best so that you’re prepared to keep learning after you graduate. In fact, nearly 75% of our graduates in 2021 learned a new language or framework in their first job. This is just the beginning of a lifetime of learning!
However, we understand you might want to know a little more about each tech-stack and how they are used in the industry in order to make your decision.
The Python programming language and the Django framework combine to provide a highly productive and powerful way to build and deploy database-oriented web applications. The power and speed of this combination, and the fact that this technology stack is open source, has resulted in Python and Django becoming one of the most common technologies for building web applications over the past ten years.
Python is widely used in web application development, analytics and data science, and several other problem domains. Jobs for Python developers are found at agencies and consultancies that build web applications, at tech startups, and at later stage tech companies. It can also be found, somewhat less commonly in Nashville, in IT departments of a few larger organizations that value the ability to rapidly build and evolve their own home-grown web applications or that are using Python for data analytics/data science applications. (If you’re interested in using Python for data analysis, we recommend pursuing one of our Data Analytics Bootcamps or Data Science Bootcamps instead.)
The C# language and the .NET framework are the centerpieces of Microsoft’s technology stack for application development. When combined with other Microsoft technologies or open source technologies, developers have the ability to build a wide variety of applications from web applications, to server-side web services, to enterprise-scale transaction processing systems using this technology stack.
These technologies are extensively used in medium to large IT organizations in business, government, education, etc. and are most commonly thought of as enterprise IT-centric technologies. In the Nashville area there are in fact many developer jobs in the IT world that call for familiarity with .NET and C#. However, we also have partner companies that build products and services where C#/.NET is an important portion of the technology stack.
The languages and frameworks we teach are based on the needs of local employers. C# and Python are the most in-demand right now.. There is also high demand for server-side engineers with Java and AWS which is taught in our Software Engineering program.
You can build a great career on and around any of the technologies that we teach. If your goal is to switch careers and you don’t already know a specific technology that makes the most sense for you, then just get started. As a professional software developer, you’ll continue to learn new languages, and many, many more technologies throughout your career. .
Learning to learn like a developer might seem daunting at first, but if you approach learning with a growth mindset and trust the process, you’ll come out the other side knowing the best way for you to approach learning new tech stacks.