[vaironl]

Hello, everyone

I'm new to this forum and fairly new to Computer Science, and this technological world.
I started programming, mainly in Java, about 2 years ago. I've gotten very interested in Software Engineering or, really I don't know the proper term, writing code.

My dream/goal at the moment is to obtain some sort of Software Development job or internship. I already had an Android Developer position recently but I really wouldn't count that since I din't learn much.
Well enough off-content talk about myself and to the point of this post. By the way, pardon any grammatical errors or anything that doesn't make sense. English is my second language and I'm learning quite a bit now that I'm in college.

So, what I hope to create is a Portfolio for the reasons mention above, my dream job/internship. I really don't know were to start with this project. I've already done a bunch of programs on my spare time. Really, most of them are just worthless since I use them to refresh some concepts. But occasionally I try to make something that challenges me to think like, a "Recipe Application" or a "Hospital patients Application". Can anyone suggest anything else that might help me?

At the moment I'm thinking about uploading my content to a free website, because that might be best? I have't done a whole lot of research, about this portfolio idea.

Currently, I'm learning about graphics(Developing video games).... I love to play video games, and I was interested in learning how exactly they are created. A bit complicated for someone like me who is in someways "stupid" /> relative to all the smart individuals I've seen in forums, but I'm starting to like it so much I even stop doing homework at times /> .

So really to sum this thread, I would just like to ask for help from all other professionals and even people who are ahead of me and who had a tough time or know what is best to do in my current position.

Thanks to all.

[macosxnerd101]

Moved to the Corner Cubicle. Please don't post help questions in the Challenges subforums.

[vaironl]

macosxnerd101, on 21 November 2012 - 08:15 PM, said:

Moved to the Corner Cubicle. Please don't post help questions in the Challenges subforums.

Had no intent to. Sorry for that. I see it more as a challenged but I guess the rules are the rules.

[macosxnerd101]

Challenges are fun programming tasks like one would see on Project Euler. Your question doesn't fall into that category.

[Tayacan]

Hmm. I don't know about the best way to present your portfolio - a website would probably be nice, because you can give links to GitHub, downloads and whatever, plus if you code it yourself, I guess it counts as one more project.

As to what projects are good to do... Make something that you could see yourself using, and of course something in the field you'd like to work in. I make a lot of games, because I'd like to end up working in the game industry. If you want to work with web, do web pages. If you want to make big desktop applications... Well, you get the point.

I also said "something you can see yourself using" - I once wrote an android app that extracted the image file from a webcomic and displayed it on my phone, because I was tired of having to load a page full of ads with my somewhat slow connection. One of my friends wrote a desktop app to find random images from imgur, with a bunch of options - completely useless, of course, but a great time-killer.

Write small things that fix some problem in your everyday life, or automates some task. It's good exercise to have an actual problem to solve.

[ishkabible]

github?

[creativecoding]

To add onto OP's post,

What if all of your work has nothing to show for it? Of course I don't mean your work did nothing, but by "work", it wasn't a visual site - more of coding backend. What would I do? Just show them samples of my code? I have doubts that would make any clients think "wow this guy really knows what he's doing! we better hire him!" because not very many of them can read/understand the code in the first place. Pretty much all I do right now is pull words out of thin air and I guess it's working for the most part. Of course reputation systems on freelance site help A BUNCH, but other than that I have nothing more to say other than "I create fast, easy-to-install scripts that are very secure and will get the job done" - with nothing to back up my claims.

[darek9576]

Why would creating backend systems with no GUI be not helpful? Most of my apps are console programs. If the employer cannot understand the code then i dont want to work for them.

[xclite]

GUIs are an easier sell, as are web apps as that's the direction people are going. It is harder to sell a portfolio that doesn't have visible, "tangible" items. I"m not saying that's right, as I stick mostly to the back end.

Showing usage of the backend or a sample interface using it is a good way to make it more "accessible."

[ishkabible]

while I don't have the experience to say one way or the other, it seems to me that so long as the person you are hiring knows the complexities of the backend work that the backend work would be just fine.

[Tayacan]

ishkabible, on 26 November 2012 - 06:50 AM, said:

github?

Yes. Github. If you want, you can check out my profile. It's pretty much my portfolio at the moment - most of the stuff I'm proud of can be found there, as well as a few old and abandoned projects and random collections of scripts I made for fun and exercise.