[The Architect 2.0]

Hey all,

I'm going to be asking from the perspective of a recent software engineering graduate.


Nowadays, where does one host their portfolio? The two major options seem to be: a personal website/landing page, or a github repo.

I'm asking because it seems like school is pushing for you to develop an actual website, whereas, alot of programmer forums seem to advocate displaying your work on github. Which method do you guys recommend and do you think there are any pros and cons going either way?

Some of my thoughts:

With a portfolio website, do you think its a good idea if you have below average design skills? I'm thinking that if the site looks horrible design-wise, but works perfectly functionality-wise, you will still get 'dinged' by a prospective employer.

However, with github, it doesn't seem like its properly formatted to 'showcase' anything. meaning that the viewer would need to download and run the projects to see how everything looks. To be honest, I haven't personally used github yet; I'm judging this based on my attempts at browsing others' repos(none of them look 'fancy').

of course, I would still actually host the code itself on github, but I would have my website serving as a fancy 'ad' page for my projects.

thoughts?

EDIT: the site isn't necessarily a portfolio project in itself(although, practically, I imagine it would be for alot of people).

This post has been edited by The Architect 2.0: 10 March 2012 - 07:46 PM

[AVReidy]

I would get a website and install a nice WordPress portfolio theme - unless you're a web designer.

The only con to having your own website is the cost of hosting (which really shouldn't set you back too much).

[pryogene]

I host my portfolio on my personal website. I had considered sourceforge, github etc; however personal space prevailed as my work generally concerns confidential ideas and the like. Some portions of these projects are purely mine, and those I make freely available as open source - provided I'm not already making money off them; The others are confidential, and if I were to store these in a publicly available space I'd be getting sued left-right-and-centre. Not desirable.

I do, however, actively use CodePlex...

[SwiftStriker00]

I created a personal site. Spend some time learning a little bit of html and CSS. I think its better to make your own site instead of using blogging template.

Luckily my school still hosts my site, so I don't need to pay for server fees, however you can always use sites like about.me . Also I'm pretty sure github, you can create a landing page too.

[bodom658]

Having something like a github or bitbucket account with code from your own projects on it can also be very good.

[The Architect 2.0]

So you think that simply having a paragraph or two describing your project is good enough to impress an employer. As never having interviewed a software developer before, I'm not exactly sure what work 'stands out.'

[Skaggles]

SwiftStriker00, on 12 March 2012 - 09:08 AM, said:

Also I'm pretty sure github, you can create a landing page too.

Yes, with Github you can host and show off your development skills. Though, if you need to show off your design skills (or even a working version of your code) you can create a gh-pages branch in your git repository and push that to github, which will then be served by Github as a website accessible by: YOURUSERNAME.github.com/YOURPROJECT

You can even point a custom domain to one of these pages.
For more information, check out GitHub Pages

This post has been edited by Skaggles: 12 March 2012 - 06:47 PM

[SirHenrik]

Your asking me to answer between a web portfolio and GitHub to present my work. And I say, yes please I'll have both. I like the thought of being in full control of my portfolio so I can choose the way I want to present things. And a nice WordPress theme easily does the trick, without demanding any design work from my end, in which I'm terrible. And if you go for a domain (which I recommend) you get your own e-mail address. Nothing wrong with Gmail or similar, but some consider it more professional with a dedicated domain name.

I love GitHub because it offers a nice and sleek interface for people to browse and observe your code and progress. In addition to the obvious you'll have a version control system at disposal, if you would ever like to roll your code back a few versions you can do so easily. If used correctly you will be able to develop and build on your code from anywhere, and at the same time your changes will be tracked for others to see. Also if you ever would get any partners on a project it's easy to include them to the GitHub repo.

And let us not forget the wiki function that you can add to each project with documentation and notes related to it. Surely you can do everything that Github offers on your own, and there is nothing wrong with that. But when you have such a great (and free) tool to use, I see no reason why not to use it.

Beware though. If you are new to Git and GitHub brace yourself for some learning.

[Sergio Tapia]

A personal website is a MUST and it's even better for you because you document what you have learned and it serves as past reference for future "you"!

Try to list what projects you have under your belt, what it solved, how you solved it and what it brought to your clients table. How did your client benefit from your work?