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What's the best way to rate programming skills?

3 points by pnispel ↗ HN
In an interview I was asked to rate myself as a programmer on a scale from 0 to 10. I had a really hard time answering that question because I had never really considered it.

So the first part of my question is: what makes a programmer rate higher than other programmers? Is it proficiency in multiple languages? Is it the amount of Github repos you have? Or perhaps how fast, clean, and modular your code is?

This leads to the second part: how do you build a portfolio that showcases these skills? This is easy if you're a graphic designer: you simply have a page that has all your designs on it. But what does a good portfolio look like for a developer?

5 comments

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frostmatthew
As for the first part anyone who would ask you that probably hasn't heard of the Dunning-Kruger effect, and you should respond by educating them (politely) that you providing such a rating probably isn't very useful http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

The second part can easily be achieved by linking to your github profile. If you don't contribute to any open source projects you probably have some side projects you wouldn't mind making public on github (if not, then start one).

elclanrs
Yeah, I think Github definitely helps, as well as few good answers on StackOverflow.
dpritchett
This question suggests that the devs in your target company have lost control of developer hiring.
stray
The way I rate another programmer is by how hard I have to think while reading his/her code.

If it is clear and easy to follow, with few surprises, then I'll rate that programmer highly. If I find things that are more complicated than they need to be, my calm will be disturbed.

Assembly of japanese bicycle require great peace of mind.