Boot.dev Blog
The Boot.dev Beat. May 2026
by Lane Wagner - Boot.dev co-founder and backend engineer
April was a polish-heavy month for us here at Boot.dev. We shipped many small improvements to the lesson experience, added Custom Learning Paths, made the Training Grounds easier to navigate, and cleaned up mobile UX annoyances.
The AI Land Grab Looks Familiar
by Boot.dev Team - Programming course authors and video producers
In May of 2013, Yahoo announced plans to buy Tumblr for 1.1 billion dollars. Yahoo's CEO, Marissa Mayer, stood in front of the press and said, "We promise not to screw it up".
Nvidia CEO: AI Doomers Could Cause a Software Engineer Shortage
by Lane Wagner - Boot.dev co-founder and backend engineer
It feels like every week Dario (Anthropic's CEO) is yelling about how AI is going to destroy white-collar jobs, particularly software engineering jobs. Well, in April 2026, about 4 years into the "in 6 weeks, AI is taking your coding job" cycle, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is finally talking about the potential consequences of that narrative:
The Boot.dev Beat. April 2026
by Lane Wagner - Boot.dev co-founder and backend engineer
March was a monster month. We shipped the new DevOps learning path (18 DevOps courses!), 2 brand new courses, upgraded the in-browser Python coding experience, and made Boot.dev noticeably better on phones.
Git Reset: Undo Commits With --soft and --hard
by ThePrimeagen - Ex-Netflix engineer, NeoVim ricer, and Git rebaser
If you've ever made a commit and immediately thought "noooope", then git reset is what you need. It's one of the most useful Git commands for undoing work, but it's also one of the easiest to misuse. The --soft version is usually safe and predictable. The --hard version is powerful and can absolutely nuke your local changes.
Git and GitHub: A Practical Pull Request Workflow
by ThePrimeagen - Ex-Netflix engineer, NeoVim ricer, and Git rebaser
Git is the open-source command-line version control tool, and GitHub is basically just a collaboration on top of it. You can absolutely use Git without GitHub, but for most teams, GitHub (or something similar) is where a lot of the collaboration happens. Linus Torvalds created Git, and... well we don't talk about who owns GitHub these days...
Git Remote: Add Origin and Fetch Remote Branches
by ThePrimeagen - Ex-Netflix engineer, NeoVim ricer, and Git rebaser
Git is distributed, which means your repo and my repo can both be valid "sources of truth". In practice, teams usually pick one remote as the shared source (often GitHub) and sync local work against it... but that's just a convention. Let's dig into how syncing Git repositories to GitHub works, and how that's just one way to work with Git.
Git Rebase: Keep History Linear Without Merge Commits
by ThePrimeagen - Ex-Netflix engineer, NeoVim ricer, and Git rebaser
If git merge feels noisy, that's because it can be. Lots of noisy merge commits make history harder to scan, especially when you're just trying to understand what actually changed. git rebase takes a different approach: instead of creating a merge commit, it replays your branch commits on top of the latest base commit so your history stays clean and linear.
Gitignore Patterns: What to Ignore and Why
by ThePrimeagen - Ex-Netflix engineer, NeoVim ricer, and Git rebaser
Many devs adopt the git add . (yolo, just yeet it all into the commit) workflow. It is fast, simple, and usually correct. But eventually you'll have files in your repo directory that should never be committed: secrets, generated artifacts, dependency folders, and random local junk. That's what .gitignore is for.
Git Branching: Create, Switch, and Manage Branches
by ThePrimeagen - Ex-Netflix engineer, NeoVim ricer, and Git rebaser
A Git branch allows you to keep track of different changes separately. For example, you can create a new branch to experiment with changing a color scheme without affecting your primary branch. If you like the changes, you merge (or rebase) the branch back into main. If you don't, you delete it.
Git Internals: How Git Stores Data and History on Disk
by ThePrimeagen - Ex-Netflix engineer, NeoVim ricer, and Git rebaser
Let's take a look at some of Git's "plumbing", that is, the commands that are mostly used for working "under the hood" with Git, and that you'll only use if you're trying to debug your Git files themselves.
Git Config: Set Your Name, Email, and Branch Defaults
by ThePrimeagen - Ex-Netflix engineer, NeoVim ricer, and Git rebaser
Git stores author information so that when you're making a commit it can track who made the change. Here's how all that configuration actually works.
Git Merge: Combine Branches and Read Merge History
by ThePrimeagen - Ex-Netflix engineer, NeoVim ricer, and Git rebaser
"What's the point of having multiple branches?" you might ask. They're most often used to safely make changes without affecting your (or your team's) primary branch. Once you're happy with your changes, you'll want to merge them back into main so that they make their way into the final product.
Python Classes and Objects: A Practical Beginner Guide
by Lane Wagner - Boot.dev co-founder and backend engineer
If classes and objects still feel slippery, you're not crazy. Most tutorials either go too abstract or drown you in weird examples. The practical way to learn OOP is simple: understand how data and behavior stick together, then build small objects that are easy to reason about.
Python Polymorphism: One Interface, Many Behaviors
by Lane Wagner - Boot.dev co-founder and backend engineer
Polymorphism is where OOP starts to feel truly powerful. You stop writing giant if type == ... trees and start trusting shared interfaces. Different objects respond to the same method call in different ways, and your calling code stays clean.
Python Encapsulation vs Abstraction: What Matters
by Lane Wagner - Boot.dev co-founder and backend engineer
If classes and objects are the "what" of OOP, encapsulation and abstraction are the "how." They're how you keep code understandable after the project gets big, your team grows, and six months pass. They sound similar because they're close cousins, but they solve slightly different pains.
Python Inheritance: When to Use It and Skip It
by Lane Wagner - Boot.dev co-founder and backend engineer
Inheritance is one of those OOP tools that feels magical on day one and dangerous on day thirty. Used well, it removes duplication and keeps models clean. Used badly, it creates class trees no one wants to touch.
Clean Code in Python: Write Readable, Maintainable Code
by Lane Wagner - Boot.dev co-founder and backend engineer
If you ask ten developers for a definition of clean code, you will get twelve answers and one argument in the comments. Still, most of us agree on the practical goal: write code that other humans can understand quickly and change safely. That matters way more than writing clever one-liners that only make sense to your past self at 2 AM.
Boot.dev's New Logo Unveiled
by Lane Wagner - Boot.dev co-founder and backend engineer
We created our old blue/black/gray logo years ago before we redsigned the site to its new gold/brown/blue textured look and feel. As such, the old logo just doesn't fit at all with the current state of the brand (as much as we loved it). So, we decided to work with an incredible designer (thanks Dusan!) to create a new logo that really captures what Boot.dev has become over the years.
Backend Developer Roadmap
by Maya Chen - Computer science and programming educator at Boot.dev
So you've decided you want to learn backend development so you can get a job - congratulations! Many self-taught coders have a hard time deciding between all the various programming job options, but it's much easier to learn effectively if you have a clear backend developer roadmap to follow. Before we get started, if you want the quick answer, check out Boot.dev's back-end roadmap - it's built from the ground up to teach backend development completely online. You will never learn to become a backend developer just by reading a blog post. Instead of trying to teach you backend development in just this post, I'll offer a deep dive into the things you need to learn. If that sounds useful, read on.
16+ Best online coding courses [2026]
by Maya Chen - Computer science and programming educator at Boot.dev
Explore the best online coding courses. Compare platforms, skill levels, pricing, and certifications to find the right course for your goals.
12+ Best online coding bootcamps [2026]
by Maya Chen - Computer science and programming educator at Boot.dev
Compare the best online coding bootcamps, features, costs, and career outcomes to find the right path into software development.
The Boot.dev Beat. March 2026
by Lane Wagner - Boot.dev co-founder and backend engineer
February was stacked with quality-of-life work and platform upgrades. A lot of this work is infrastructure-heavy and not quite as flashy, but it makes Boot.dev faster, sturdier, and more fun to use. Also: the DevOps learning path is very close. The AWS and logging courses are getting their final polish and should be landing any week now.
Python Exceptions: Try, Except, and Raise
by Lane Wagner - Boot.dev co-founder and backend engineer
Learn how try, except, and raise work in Python, when to raise your own exceptions, and why catching everything with a bare except hides bugs.
Python Sets: What They Are and How to Use Them
by Lane Wagner - Boot.dev co-founder and backend engineer
Sets are like lists, but with two key differences: they are unordered and they guarantee uniqueness. Only one of each value can exist in a set. If you need to track unique items or remove duplicates, sets are the tool for the job.
