What are features of a good portfolio for a programmer?

what are features of a good portfolio for a programmer?

I’ve looked through a few code portfolios before. Here’s what I look for:

  • What kind of technologies does it use? Like most developers, I like fancy shiny new tech, so I’m naturally intrigued by projects that use it, for better or worse. But even use of old tech is fine, as long as it follows good practices: if a page using jQuery is using proper DOM manipulation, great. If it’s using .innerHTML() we might not be looking at expertise here.

  • Does it use the technologies appropriately? If someone claims Laravel experience, I want to see use of events, queued jobs, middleware, dependency injection, custom scopes, and so on, not just a plain-jane MVC controller that sets a bunch of variables for a blade template. Even over-using the tech to where it’s inappropriate isn’t so bad: enthusiastic programmers don’t always know when to stop, and I want enthusiasm.

  • Is it organized well? Does the build process consist of a single README with 10 steps to follow manually? Does it use standard build tools? Better yet, is it packaged up and published on npm or CPAN or whatever? Building something with distribution quality, even if it’s simple, requires follow-through and attention to detail.

  • Is the author personally invested in the project in some way, or at least were they at some point? It doesn’t have to be a labor of love, just something that makes it look like the author wasn’t just padding their portfolio for length. You just can’t make me care about yet another boilerplate TodoMVC or Pet Store app that hasn’t added any innovations.

And no, I don’t practice what I preach. My public github presence is a barren wasteland.

Oh and by the way, welcome to the forums :slight_smile: