How to make an impressive programming portfolio

OVERTONE69

Just read down to 4th paragraph if you want to hear the question.

THE BACKGROUND:
This is more of a personal question but if you have an advice to give to other users that apply to all port folios then please feel free to address it, but please make sure you mention it applies to everyone.

So basically I'm in the middle of my third year and will be graduating with an ordinary bachelors degree in computing soon. I dont know how my degree score will go even though i absolutely love programming. So the plan is to take a gap year and get some experience. hopefully a short internship followed by a steady paid entry level position. Then return to do 4th year and blitz the year straight through with money saved up from said job (so no part time job to distract from study)

THE QUESTION:
Ive decided to avail of digiwebs free hosting pan this year for students because I'm pretty broke. I'm want t host a port folio site to help me get my first software development job, but alas I'm not sure what to fill it with. So my question is, what 3 small applications would impress you as developers to give me a first job.

IT MUST BE IN JAVA!.
I know a bit of sql, c++, html, css, asp but java is by far my strongest, the rest are just filler.


p.s On another note, what do you think of this app?

I already have a program that acts as a kind of news ticker, scrolling text across the screen. It uses timed events as in every 30 seconds, check for something. uses htmlunit framework to take information from a webpage and parses it to something readable in java. and uses moving graphics from awt (nothing fancy). a bit more tweaking and maybe. Any good?


As per a previous thread, IM DAMN HUNGRY FOR CODE RIGHT NOW. So any ideas are most welcome.

henryporter

Didn't know about Digiwebs free hosting for Students - great!

Dave D

Wow, Im pretty much in exactly the same situation as you. Just gathering up bits a pieces of some of my past project to start on my portfolio.
I don't think you should limit the projects in your portfolio to just Java tho. Having projects in other languages can show that you can pick up and learn a language if the job needs it.

Your projects sounds like a pretty good idea alright, you could maybe even adapt it to get certain stocks on the stock market and the current currency exchange rate etc.

fergalr

OVERTONE69 wrote: »

Just read down to 4th paragraph if you want to hear the question.

THE BACKGROUND:
This is more of a personal question but if you have an advice to give to other users that apply to all port folios then please feel free to address it, but please make sure you mention it applies to everyone.

So basically I'm in the middle of my third year and will be graduating with an ordinary bachelors degree in computing soon. I dont know how my degree score will go even though i absolutely love programming. So the plan is to take a gap year and get some experience. hopefully a short internship followed by a steady paid entry level position. Then return to do 4th year and blitz the year straight through with money saved up from said job (so no part time job to distract from study)

THE QUESTION:
Ive decided to avail of digiwebs free hosting pan this year for students because I'm pretty broke. I'm want t host a port folio site to help me get my first software development job, but alas I'm not sure what to fill it with. So my question is, what 3 small applications would impress you as developers to give me a first job.

IT MUST BE IN JAVA!.
I know a bit of sql, c++, html, css, asp but java is by far my strongest, the rest are just filler.


p.s On another note, what do you think of this app?

I already have a program that acts as a kind of news ticker, scrolling text across the screen. It uses timed events as in every 30 seconds, check for something. uses htmlunit framework to take information from a webpage and parses it to something readable in java. and uses moving graphics from awt (nothing fancy). a bit more tweaking and maybe. Any good?


As per a previous thread, IM DAMN HUNGRY FOR CODE RIGHT NOW. So any ideas are most welcome.

As an entry level developer, what functionality you built probably will not matter as much as what tools and technologies you build it in.

In other words, don't worry too much about the exact apps you build do - build whatever are most interesting and compelling to you.
But do try and build them well, using technologies and techniques that you'd want to work with, and show an employer you know; and remember that smaller projects, well finished and polished, are generally more impressive than abandoned more ambitious projects.

It sounds like you are writing a desktop app using Java.
Have you considered doing web development? The web is a pretty big platform at the moment, and a lot of jobs seem to be in webdev.


One other word of advice - and please don't take this harshly, its only a minor thing - you should consider your style of written communication. A lot of a development job involves written communication, and making the effort to write syntactically correct sentences is worth it!

boblong

If I was an employer, I'd be looking to see if you have had any involvement in open source projects. For example, finding a project that's reasonably well known but buggy, and submitting a few patches. Getting to know a code base well enough to contribute to it is a great skill that's not taught so much.

fergalr

boblong wrote: »

If I was an employer, I'd be looking to see if you have had any involvement in open source projects. For example, finding a project that's reasonably well known but buggy, and submitting a few patches. Getting to know a code base well enough to contribute to it is a great skill that's not taught so much.

I wouldn't be particularly looking for something like that; although I'm not exactly hiring people

I mean, everyone would look favourably on accepted and meaningful contributions to a large project.

Working on open source is one way of doing this.
But its not something I'd have expected someone to do, or something I'd be looking for.
I know some people that say open source contributions are something they'd almost require, and I think that's bizarre.

BlackWizard

Write an app for this guy http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056175975

add it to your site

OVERTONE69

BlackWizard wrote: »

Write an app for this guy http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056175975

add it to your site

Lol. doing someone elses work is hardly gonna get me noticed. he wants to parse xml which isnt too hard but alas, i need some interesting apps that make someone go "hey, this guy can code some decent stuff"

boblong wrote: »

If I was an employer, I'd be looking to see if you have had any involvement in open source projects. For example, finding a project that's reasonably well known but buggy, and submitting a few patches. Getting to know a code base well enough to contribute to it is a great skill that's not taught so much.

fergalr wrote: »

I wouldn't be particularly looking for something like that; although I'm not exactly hiring people

I mean, everyone would look favorably on accepted and meaningful contributions to a large project.

Working on open source is one way of doing this.
But its not something I'd have expected someone to do, or something I'd be looking for.
I know some people that say open source contributions are something they'd almost require, and I think that's bizarre.

Both good points, open source was something I've always wanted to contribute too but theres 2 major problems with it. the first is time constraints, 9-5 college and working part time doesnt allow for any industry level work on projects, hence why i settled on small but cool apps. i can make them in spare time and a number of skills can be demonstrated.

2nd problem I'd gladly try over the summer to get myself involved, i feel im finally at a level where i can. its more so finding a project that i can actually contribute to. I can rush head first into a project I've no clue about but there's not much use full information on how a student can get involved in these. The majority of Open source projects use people who are so good at code they can do ti for free (at least that's my interpretation). In reality, I would probably start of writing documentation for them before any coding could be attempted.

fergalr wrote: »

As an entry level developer, what functionality you built probably will not matter as much as what tools and technologies you build it in.

In other words, don't worry too much about the exact apps you build do - build whatever are most interesting and compelling to you.
But do try and build them well, using technologies and techniques that you'd want to work with, and show an employer you know; and remember that smaller projects, well finished and polished, are generally more impressive than abandoned more ambitious projects.

It sounds like you are writing a desktop app using Java.
Have you considered doing web development? The web is a pretty big platform at the moment, and a lot of jobs seem to be in webdev.


One other word of advice - and please don't take this harshly, its only a minor thing - you should consider your style of written communication. A lot of a development job involves written communication, and making the effort to write syntactically correct sentences is worth it!

Great Feedback mate! Good advice to start. so i should dabble in a bunch of different tech, stop me if you think these are bad ideas? android development, spring framework and some sort of simple database connectivity program.

lots of little projects instead of big production level stuff.

I've considered web-dev and I don't know why but it just doesnt appeal to me. Its just a personal preference that i like small standalone apps and mobile applications better. The general languages assocaited with applications; c++, java, and some scripting appeal to me a lot more than web languages like php, asp, html, css. Again its just personal preference. But beggars cant be choosers and I would do what offered me the most benefit.



FINALLY; A BIG LOL TO THE LAST PART. I'm aware my grammar on Forum's is pretty bad. My written communication could definitely use some work but its not nearly as bad as it's made out to be on boards. My hand written documents and MS docs are much cleaner than this, I promise.




Some great feedback everyone. I hope I get a bit more. Thanks