Wednesday, March 12, 2008

The programmer's portfolio

OK, my company is starting to hire people. What is one of the first things
the boss says? "It's so hard to find J2EE people." And then we talk a bit.
Sure enough, the job advertisement is rife full of toolkits. You've seen
them, these job announcements that look like a book an
O'Reilly book catalog listing? Does anyone think that sounds like a
fun company to work for?

I want to see portfolios. If programmers put together highlights of their
work, displaying what they are most proud of in technical detail, I'd
probably hire them in a second. Especially if they could write well.

Now the interesting question becomes, what is a programmer's portfolio?
A beautiful leather-bound article on your favorite API. A website displaying
your interface development work. Articles on decisions you've made.

Something tells me the creation of a portfolio would be a better learning
experience in and of itself.

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