Ask HN: Should I post mediocre and/or small projects on GitHub?

[lystergic]

Having 1.5 years left on my CS degree (of 5 years in total in Sweden) I wonder how potential employers rate the amount of content vs quality - when using GitHub as an extension to my regular resume?

I have developed quite a few programs varying in quality and size over the years. I however feel that for every program I develop I find that my previous programs lack in quality, and sometimes I even get a sense of shame in having written that code. This prevents me from submitting anything to GitHub at all, thinking that I will regret it later as I learn more. There is also the problem of documentation - large portions of code that I write lack comments, as at the time of writing the code seems "obvious".

So what do you think? Is it worth re-working the code, adding comments & code refactoring in order to present some sort of portfolio or should I wait until I feel I have reached a level of maturity and standard of quality?

[krapp]

I wouldn't get too hung up about it. Just having a Github account puts you ahead of the curve, and most Github accounts are just random personal projects and junk, including mine. My current employer even pointed out that I have the same problem (very few comments and not much documentation) with my projects, and I just told him "it's all personal projects" and it wasn't an issue (but YMMV obviously.)

Most employers don't care. Of the ones that will, most will only give your code a cursory glance just to make sure you're not a drooling imbecile. For those employers who actually look and actually care, maybe, have one really shiny project and refer to it your resume. Really work on some final projects and consider posting those. Although, if you do add documentation and comments, etc, then your projects will be more attractive to the open source community as a whole (which will, of course, make you look better to employers.) But do it if you want to, not because you feel you need to.

[AndriusSutas]

Yes, you should.

The positives (e.g. learning something new, getting feedback, improving, etc) far outweigh negatives (the worst that can happen is that no one will care).

>I however feel that for every program I develop I find that my previous programs lack in quality

You're not alone, it's normal. No one likes being judged, but it's one of the main ways of improving and should be embraced.

[whichdan]

From an interviewer's perspective, they just want to see that you can use GitHub and write some code that looks well-formatted and well-reasoned. Nothing is more disheartening than opening up someone's GitHub profile and seeing 70 repositories, most of which have less than 10 commits, or are just forks.

I'd recommend using GitHub however you want, and when you want to apply for jobs, create a small website on GitHub Pages highlighting your best projects. If you can intelligently talk about your different projects and how you improved between them, that will be a hugely positive signal when applying for a junior position.

[jarcane]

I wouldn't worry about cleaning up old code, so much as I'd worry about making sure that new projects showed progress and improvement on those fronts to old ones.

I actually quite literally use Github as my resume, but while I'm not 100% proud of some of my earlier projects, I simply keep working to make sure the next one is better so that my Github demonstrates my ability to grow and improve in a tangible way.

[Bahamut]

Post anything you want - nobody will really care, even if you use your GitHub profile as part of your resume. Heck, many won't even check out the code (I do).

I would mention it only if there is any code there you would like to show off though. I got tons of crap on my profile, but the valuable thing that anyone sees with mine are the projects I have contributed to and the quality of my contributions.

[jordsmi]

I think that it is fine to have small mediocre things on your github. It is your github after all, use it to host your things so that you can use them when needed.

Maybe point out some of the more solid applications that people could check out on your resume, but really having anything on your github is a plus on its own.

[chisto]

I think any project is a good one - service a purpose. I have been writing small programs to fill my needs for like 3 years, improvee them and share with my coworkers, you can use github for a lot of stuffs i.e. I have my webpage code in github there are no real constraints here.