Why Your GitHub Matters (For Self-Taught Programmers) 

You're right, no matter what many others say. Continue your excellence on your channel.

Very very poor are the words that describe mine

like a christmas tree

@Ariana Very good argument! Shame that github was sold to them. Do you have a good alternative besides gitlab? The only thing i use from them is atom, didn't find a better alternative yet.

Very busy, with commits most days except Saturday. (None last Friday, as I was at a continuing ed class involving several programs, including one of mine.)

Thank you very much for sharing your experience

To me, code is just a tool to create things. If I cared about clean code on my personal projects then I wouldn’t make anything. This a difference between software written for yourself and software written with others. We shouldn’t hold them both to the same standards.

@@alexandersage1850 yea, who going to give a shit about clean code. If the app works, and functional. We got to many picking idiots out there

Any time!

You are very welcome

Happy to help!

OH YEA?? and they giving codes for free?

Thanks Paulo!

I’m in the same position but for absolute beginners that is completely normal!! Just be consistent and keep revisiting the concepts. I started with cs50 but I figured that it will rake a long time before I can feel like I’m productive. Some RU-vidrs recommend for beginners to learn the front end path first (html, css, JavaScript) and I’m really enjoying it so far.

You can do it. It's perfect for storing and display your projects and you'll need to know how to use it in the future. It's really worth learning to use.

How r u doing now???

@@retailinvestorinstockmarke6793 I've mostly abandoned my GitHub projects over the past year, quit applying as well. Sometimes there isn't a happy ending, I guess.

@@johncraig5979 thanks for the update

@@johncraig5979 i hope you all the best man, keep up

I am 13, and started out with literal batch. I slowly picked up on python as I wanted to expand to more advanced programs. It’s incredibly simple. Would totally recommend it as a first programming language

HTML/CSS is the fundamental of Web design. Then you jump into programming, like Javascript (server-side)

Whoa! You're busy. :-)

novice question: if I want to show my consistency through Github, does that mean I should commit every change I make to my project (big or small)? also, should I upload every project I make to GitHub just to prove my consistency and my passion for code? I'm a little bit confused, because if I commit every small change, then I would feel like I'm just trying to make my GitHub activity "green"er (I'd feel like I'm faking my activity), whereas if I only commit big changes (for example, right now I only upload project when I finish them, and I have like 7 commits in the last year) it's gonna make look like an inactive programmer. So according to you, what's the best way to go about it? and if you could tell us how did you get those DAMN 2.5 commits, I would appreciate it a lot. TIA

@@akramdahmani7214 this way u'll definitely show the employer that you dont know how to use git and github properly

@@akramdahmani7214 they normally dont look into your commit in detail, commit count is not important, your project quality is more important. Also I dont cheat on commit, since I work alone, I usually commit a lot of changes into one commit, my "real" commit is actually far beyond 2.5k and again, your project quality count, not your commit number

@@hangor3620 it didn't feel right to me too, so, do you have a better idea on how to show the potential employer my coding skills using GitHub?

Check out IAmTimCorey. He's got a RU-vid channel for free and a website that's a little more organized if you're willing to pay. His focus is C#.

Run some tutorials/code-along projects and as you code along try to understand what exactly the program is doing. Step by step. Otherwise, try making a simple application and figure out what it is you need to learn.

@@brian1185 Thanks Brian. Tim has really a nice and rich channel which I follow.

@@djdankmemes9257 Thanks DJ. I will do, any ideas which we can together do?

Got my answer towards the end. Thank you

if you mean following a tutorial on a project i would recommend trying to scratch your head and search every step on google

Definitely not wrong to build your skills by doing projects from RU-vid / Microsoft / wherever, but then it might be a good idea to create your own projects and then apply those skills there. Try building an application to manage ‘Manufacturers’ and the ‘Widgets’ that they make. Can you have two manufacturers with the same name? Can you have two widgets with the same name made by the same manufacturer? Can you have two widgets with the same name made by different manufacturers? What happens to the widgets if you delete a manufacturer (which of course shouldn’t happen - the manufacturer should be made ‘inactive’)? Can you transfer a widget to a different manufacturer? What then happens if a manufacturer already makes a widget with the same name? Just my approach, but it makes me think about how to manage these issues...

@@julianaburrow7131 Thank you so much 👍 Really needed someone to say this

if you wanna get a job you better do tho

@@Corneax I know it man. It is really important. This doesn't matter that I am already studying

@@Kytrion if you don't want it is up to you but i recommend a github account even if you are not self taught

ALPHA i know man. This is basic to get a job

You could always make your own website to put your Portfolio pieces on instead

This is the dumbest piece of logic I have read on here. Maybe the system is wrong, and you are enabling this farce?

@@raywhyms8441 Or maybe we get over 100 applicants per position and have to find some way to quickly assess them? At some point you have to realize you're not all that special to a company until you've been there for some time and have ownership over things, that makes you hard to replace. Even then, your best shot at getting a lot more money from a company is trying to get a job elsewhere, which is a harsh, yet annoying truth. So, try to get into this mindset: When your application just barely passes recruiter keyword scans, you really can't expect anything, but if it passes all the checks, and you just don't happen to have linked a Github profile, people will be more inclined to scratch the surface. On the other hand, if you have things that are overly simple or just recent (and often badly written) uni projects, and we need someone medior/senior level, it's really your best shot to try to impress everyone on a technical interview, because your github isn't impressive. I am not saying this is fair to every single applicant (and businesses rarely are), but you can't expect special treatment when (according to your CV and Github) there's hundreds of people just like you lining up for interviews. Then there's also people who have 10 years of experience at various companies, and guess what, we barely ever check their githubs, because we use services to confirm how they did at their last few employers, so this only really applies to people getting their first job. So, you either take my advice, and get a better shot at getting to the technical interview at a company, where you could try to leave an impression on people, OR you post your uni github with 2 badly written projects (even if you could do a lot better now). I've gone through hundreds of githubs over the years, and it was only a few times that a recent college graduate had something worthwhile there - and often it was open source projects, and stuff they committed even before their uni projects, which implied they've been programming for quite a while. I am mentioning this because we get a lot of recent uni graduates and when assessing them I *have* to write what their github is like if they provide one. If they don't, hey it's not an issue.

@@someoneelse5005 You have spent a lot of time writing a whole load of nonsense. So many holes in your argument. The IT industry would be better off if middle men like you were not around. I guess you couldn't cope with being an actual developer.

@@raywhyms8441 I am a senior developer with 12 years of software engineering experience. That I also do managerial work now is because I happen to lead a team. I still have to finish my developer work alongside all managerial duties. You sound like you hate the management, but the reality is, you hate the fact that companies are for-profit organizations that look to minimize costs while maximizing profit. You know, the same thing you do with your paycheck. Middle management is there to make this process smoother for the company. Truth be told though, most people who only do management are pretty bad at it, hence why we fired most of them, so that team leads now manage people in their team and do assessments. The fact is, most people who get into IT nowadays are unable to do the work that we need. That is just a sad reality. I have spent 9 years working freelance where I was forced to be rather independent, deal with clients directly, do market assessment to price my services properly, etc. I have only been working for companies for 3 years. People who expect to just finish college and go far through only ever being cogs in the machine, having someone hold their hand, etc, really don't get far in my experience. It's really mostly self-starters, self taught people who end up getting far, so people who have all sorts of cool stuff to their name, that they have created, either for themselves or the companies, or people who simply have lots of experience pushing themselves over the boundaries of what they've been assigned. People who will jump the company when they are no longer fairly compensated for their enthusiasm and competence will get far. Getting stuck at a company that doesn't analyze your progress will kill your career and spirit, and will stunt your growth as an engineer. Considering that we like hiring smart people, we will also prefer people who can tailor a good CV and either make their github presentable or realize it isn't. I am not saying we like catching people lying in the recruitment process (and it happens with most candidates), but if you do not understand what your strong and weak points are, that's a red flag. You can either ignore everything I've said and pretend that's not how things work, or you can take the advice to game the system in a smart way.

@@someoneelse5005 I don't need your advice. The worst people in life are those that want to insist they are right, and can never consider why they might be wrong. They also make the worst software developers. But go ahead and write your long comments if it helps you justify what you are doing. It must be an ego thing.

I would google yourself and see if it even comes up. You might not even have to worry about it if they can't find it. Plus as long as there isn't anything terrible on there that's public I don't think anyone would care that you have a personal profile.

You can think of it more like a background check for anything sketchy or incriminating than anything else