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Jeff Atwood on a Programmer's Portfolio

15 points by JVillella ↗ HN
An interesting read: http://blog.codinghorror.com/a-programmers-portfolio/ Has anyone found that their portfolio has been of help to them? I decided to spend the time to build one (http://jvillella.com) in Jekyll.

3 comments

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jarcane
I do something like this with my web resume. I reserve a portion of it expressly just for Github links and descriptions of my projects thus far, anything public. To save time, I keep all the data in simple text files, and then generate the markdown using scripts I wrote (which are themselves on a public repo, and in theory updated over time to add ports for each language I become familiar enough to write one in, as further skills demonstration).

It's not paid off just yet, but this may be merely because I've not cast it about much yet. I have been thinking that the results at present are a bit sparse and impersonal, and I don't really make any effort to 'pretty it up', preferring instead just to distribute a link to the GH preview page for it.

I'd be happy for any feedback/advice on the idea, as I'm starting to reconsider a revision now. Link is here: https://github.com/jarcane/resume.hsy

jader201
> That's part of the job description for a graphic designer, but why shouldn't this rule apply to software developers, too?

I think there's a very obvious reason for this. And it's akin to an electrician telling you to drive through a populated neighborhood to see his handywork -- a designer can show you their work because it's public-facing and visible for everyone. A developer, on the other hand, can only show you open source work, or personal work that they have ownership of.

It's much easier for a designer to do this than a developer, and I think for this reason, many companies don't expect a portfolio from developers. It's often a nice-to-have, but they often rely on other aspects (coding exercises, Stack Overflow/Github profiles) to evaluate a candidate.