Welcome to the show, I have to be honest it has been a CRAZY few weeks, and I have struggled to get this podcast done because of crazy family stuff! But we made it! 6 weeks of excitement, and more family commitments and here we are, getting ready to blast off!
Beyond stoked about the numbers coming from the audio podcast! We have had a solid, and consistent number and we keep growing! Let's keep that up! The numbers on YouTube are pretty horrid, but there is a solid chance here soon we will just be making the swap to twitch.tv to do more of a live thing.
I want to take a couple of minutes to drop a side note. I have a friend who has been struggling so I want to address it. If you are struggling with mental health, or addictions, please get help. COVID has really put a hurt on a ton of people in regards to both, and the reality is that if you need help make sure that you get it.
There were a ton of memes about drinking heavily during the lockdowns and during the work at home portions of the pandemic, and while it was amusing this is a reality for a ton of people, and I hope that someone is around to help those who are struggling up off of the floor.
Mental health and addictions are not a joke, and we have an extreme spike in the United States. If you are in a dark period of time and feel like there is no out, please reach out to the national suicide prevention line. They have qualified folks ready to take the time to talk it out with you.
Their number is: 800-273-8255 and I hope that each of you that need it takes the time to pick the phone up and make the call. If you are experiencing addictions and general mental health issues reach out to your local health departments, or your primary care provider to get help. We have had far too much death.
Now shifting gears.
I apologize for a bit of a morbid start, but I made it clear when I started the podcast we would talk about other topics than just software. That said, this week's topic IS about software! We talked about portfolios, and we talked about resumes, this week is portfolio projects!
We are going to talk about the kind of projects that reach out and grab peoples interest, what is a good project, and what is a bad project.
Let's start with what not to build, or add to your portfolio. I think that we need to get these out of the way so that we can spend more time talking about what TO do instead of how to shoot yourself in the foot out of the gate.
So a toy project is a small project that teaches you a specific portion of a language, or framework. This kind of project is going to be simple, and quick to do. More often than not this is the kind of project that you would see while learning. You want to avoid including these for a few different reasons, the first is that it shows your inexperience very clearly to a seasoned developer. Second, it is as common as a plastic bag floating down a road. You want to stand out and show experience, not your inexperience, and hide beneath the tide of other developers.