The landing page really needs to do a much better job of explaining what this does and who it's for, preferably with some visual examples of whatever it is that it does viewable without a requirement for signing up.
Right now, I basically have no idea what this is - is it something like Dribbble but for programming? Or is it more like oDesk? Who comes up with the applications? Who does the code reviews? Et cetera. Nearly every sentence of copy is ambiguous.
Good point. Thanks for the feedback. You really don't need to sign up to experience what projects we offer but some stuff requires sign up as you said. We will make sure that we remove the ambiguities and work on our copywriting.
As for your questions :
1- Experts in the field working with us have come up with Applications. We are working with some companies so that they can put sponsored applications on our website that they would love to see on a candidates resume. In addition, if anyone has an idea for a project they can submit it on the project page and we will work with them to refine it and put it there.
2- The community does the code reviews. As you said this is unclear right now on the landing page. Basically, if there is a person who have done the project before you with a good score, they will review the code. Reviewing someone's code is also part of your portfolio so you get a score for doing it.
At first I thought this is an article with tips to build a portfolio. Then I thought ah, they help me publish my stuff, like dribble or behance. Then I arrived at the node.js setup page and I closed it.
I recently started to update my GitHub profile for the same reason and created my username.github.io page with a simple landing that summarizes my interesting repos. My point is that the need is definitely there, but I think the message of the site is "if you have zero imagination how to show off that you can code, here are some projects for you".
Thats a harsh way to put it but somehow true. Its less about imagination and more about ability.
The people who need this site the most are people who are new to programming or don't have any university background (online courses, self taught). Unlike you these people DO struggle starting their own project and they DO need some help setting up their node.js environment.
The problem is that many of us who learned programming on our own have gone through these initial struggles (although we might have forgotten it). People who are learning online are led to believe that becoming a programmer is as easy as taking a code academy course and when they finish the course, they can't do much cause they have been gamified and handheld too much. Most of these people are giving up because there is this sharp fall from finishing an online course and becoming a 'developer'. We are trying to help these people.
Good developers are not in terrible need of a portfolio but the new ones or the ones who are changing their career path are in need of it to actually get a job.
I find the focus on building portfolios frustrating. Mostly what I've seen it accomplish is people writing dumb scripts that don't do anything particularly useful or basic web apps that would never be useful for anything beyond the toy case the author came up with. That's not to knock building small programs like these to develop skills or become familiar with a new library, but it's hardly an adequate way of showing your mastery of programming. I'd be much more impressed by one large, interesting project than by a bunch of small, pointless ones.
Have you written something like that? I think programmers should have a right to a personal life as well. My mother has never had to "build a portfolio" outside of her job ever. Whatever she had accomplished in her professional career shows how skilful she is. Yet you're probably lazy if you don't go home and start churning out code, am I right?
There are a lot of useful things you can do at a small scale. Take setup examples; those are useful for other people and useful for you in the future as they preserve something that you had to spend time figuring out. Near all infrastructure and software is very poorly documented when it comes to examples and setup documentation, and you could build an entire and very useful portfolio based on that alone given the work that you'd be doing over the course of a few years of consulting.
My GitHub account contains a mix of (a) small pieces of functional software used in niches that are poorly supported, such as non-delivery report processing in Drupal, (b) dumb things that were amusing enough to write, such as a self-propagating bash script, and (c) functional examples for software that lacks good functional examples, such as the use of Guice in DropWizard.
This sort of thing seems more than good enough to demonstrate that you know what you're doing.
Can you give an example of something that you find large and interesting ?
Did you have a chance to take a look at the actual projects ? The projects are modeled after things that are already on production (Zillow, Medium, Flipboard). They are meant to get you started on those things.
As someone who is hiring right now for a front-end position I really really hope this takes off. Far too many people have no realistic or publicly available code. Even for the back-end positions we're hiring for it would be awesome to see a custom implementation of something like to-do app.
perfect. We would love to talk with you more to see what you will see as valuable on the resume of a candidate. I will be really happy if you could spare a few moments anytime you are free. My email is alif@zyring.com
We don't charge anyone for doing the projects and all the code that a person does is owned by themselves (we dont even host your code or know where it is). Anyone that works on Zyring can do whatever they want with their code.
Hi this is Zarya, one of the co-founder of Zyring. I have actually used Code4startup and we are much different. Code4Startup helps you clone websites for the purpose of literally getting a website up for your startup. At Zyring, our goal is to get people to build applications from scratch so they can add it to their portfolio and get a job. That's why we put so emphasis on code reviews and feedback.
If you have used code4startup, I would love to talk to you about your goals and if there is anyway we can help you. My email is zaryafaraj@zyring.com. Thanks!
hey I'm one of the cofounders of Zyring. Would love to know why you closed the tab when seeing Angular. Are there other technologies that you're interested in and think we should cover?
I like the idea and aim of the site but was it really necessary to make it completely unviewable without JavaScript? What ever happened to progressive enhancement?
Related: I signed up but saw all the web projects are dependent on Angular or React. I understand that these technologies are good to be familiar with for making a portfolio these days but they're not for me; not what I want to spend my time on.
I did join the waiting list for their yet-to-launch iOS projects though.
Thanks for feedback. Apologies. Most of the stuff we do requires a bit of javascript. We are going to definitely add something to our backlog so that people with disabled JS can use it.
bshimmin|11 years ago
Right now, I basically have no idea what this is - is it something like Dribbble but for programming? Or is it more like oDesk? Who comes up with the applications? Who does the code reviews? Et cetera. Nearly every sentence of copy is ambiguous.
zooso|11 years ago
As for your questions :
1- Experts in the field working with us have come up with Applications. We are working with some companies so that they can put sponsored applications on our website that they would love to see on a candidates resume. In addition, if anyone has an idea for a project they can submit it on the project page and we will work with them to refine it and put it there.
2- The community does the code reviews. As you said this is unclear right now on the landing page. Basically, if there is a person who have done the project before you with a good score, they will review the code. Reviewing someone's code is also part of your portfolio so you get a score for doing it.
kowdermeister|11 years ago
I recently started to update my GitHub profile for the same reason and created my username.github.io page with a simple landing that summarizes my interesting repos. My point is that the need is definitely there, but I think the message of the site is "if you have zero imagination how to show off that you can code, here are some projects for you".
zooso|11 years ago
The people who need this site the most are people who are new to programming or don't have any university background (online courses, self taught). Unlike you these people DO struggle starting their own project and they DO need some help setting up their node.js environment.
The problem is that many of us who learned programming on our own have gone through these initial struggles (although we might have forgotten it). People who are learning online are led to believe that becoming a programmer is as easy as taking a code academy course and when they finish the course, they can't do much cause they have been gamified and handheld too much. Most of these people are giving up because there is this sharp fall from finishing an online course and becoming a 'developer'. We are trying to help these people.
Good developers are not in terrible need of a portfolio but the new ones or the ones who are changing their career path are in need of it to actually get a job.
jeffreyrogers|11 years ago
emerongi|11 years ago
exratione|11 years ago
My GitHub account contains a mix of (a) small pieces of functional software used in niches that are poorly supported, such as non-delivery report processing in Drupal, (b) dumb things that were amusing enough to write, such as a self-propagating bash script, and (c) functional examples for software that lacks good functional examples, such as the use of Guice in DropWizard.
This sort of thing seems more than good enough to demonstrate that you know what you're doing.
pacala|11 years ago
zooso|11 years ago
Did you have a chance to take a look at the actual projects ? The projects are modeled after things that are already on production (Zillow, Medium, Flipboard). They are meant to get you started on those things.
iandanforth|11 years ago
zooso|11 years ago
hoboon|11 years ago
Having a site talk about requirements is useful. A lot of the times I don't know about features or needs in a system until someone told me.
20-30 minutes talking with an engineer and whiteboarding a solution to a site helped me along immensely towards a solution that had more meat on it.
clyfe|11 years ago
zooso|11 years ago
woah|11 years ago
G650|11 years ago
zaryaf|11 years ago
If you have used code4startup, I would love to talk to you about your goals and if there is anyway we can help you. My email is zaryafaraj@zyring.com. Thanks!
zo1|11 years ago
But, how do you, at least internally, pronounce your name/URL?
ZeeRing? Like "He Ring"
ZaiRing? like "Hi Ring"
ZiRing? Like "Zirring".
zooso|11 years ago
unknown|11 years ago
[deleted]
dotdi|11 years ago
zaryaf|11 years ago
gfreeman|11 years ago
I like the idea and aim of the site but was it really necessary to make it completely unviewable without JavaScript? What ever happened to progressive enhancement?
firasd|11 years ago
I did join the waiting list for their yet-to-launch iOS projects though.
zooso|11 years ago