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Show HN: Pocketsquare – portfolios for developers

pocketsquare.io

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Re: Show HN: Pocketsquare – portfolios for developers

#21

Post by onion2k »

Code repos are also hard to digest for non-technical folks

And that's exactly what the gh-pages branch in a repo that generates a Github Pages/Jekyll site addresses - https://pages.github.com/

This is an admirable effort but I feel it's going about the problem the wrong way. The presentation is very rarely the problem with developer websites. It's the content that's the problem. No amount of fancy bootstrap veneer is going to fix someone failing to write documentation for their project or themselves, especially when Github makes it very easy.

Re: Show HN: Pocketsquare – portfolios for developers

#22

Post by alanfriedman »

fougerejo wrote: post #19
lolptdr wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Snippets provide a way to showcase concise bits of code or programs. I think of it as a place to centralize jsfiddles that emphasize specific interactions or examples of some particular software concept or architecture.

Yep, and that's very nice/useful for a blog post, but it feels weird in a portfolio. It's like "hey, I'm XX, those are my strong skills, and check this neat piece of code".

I do see your point, and I'll just have to see if it's something users want and are using, or not.

Re: Show HN: Pocketsquare – portfolios for developers

#24

Post by seanwilson »

Looks great! I recently revamped my freelancing homepage and something like this would have made the process much quicker.

By the way, I noticed your site returns a server error for pages that aren't found instead of a 404 e.g. https://pocketsquare.io/notfound

Re: Show HN: Pocketsquare – portfolios for developers

#25

Post by alanfriedman »

onion2k wrote: post #21

Code repos are also hard to digest for non-technical folks And that's exactly what the gh-pages branch in a repo that generates a Github Pages/Jekyll site addresses - https://pages.github.com/ This is an admirable effort but I feel it's going about the problem the wrong way. The presentation is very rarely the problem with developer websites. It's the content that's the problem. No amount of fancy bootstrap veneer is…

Thanks for the feedback. I'm a fan of Github pages and Jekyll and have used them for several projects. Github pages are great for explaining individual repositories but I think they serve a different purpose than Pocketsquare.

Pocketsquare is more of an overview of what you do, letting you showcase multiple projects in one place and talk about different skills, language and frameworks you know, as well as highlight your experience and education background if you'd like.

Re: Show HN: Pocketsquare – portfolios for developers

#26

Post by a3n »

alanfriedman wrote: post #4

Hey guys, thanks for checking out Pocketsquare. I built this to give devs a better way to showcase their work. For me, my public Github page isn't always the best representation of the stuff I like to work on, and LinkedIn isn't optimized to show dev work. So, Pocketsquare focuses on just showing your skills, projects (may or may not correspond to a git repo) and code snippets. You can also show work experience or ed…

Cool idea.

> Oh, also: it’s free.

Your target users, developers, have the "I'm a product" meme at the front of brain. It certainly immediately came to mind when I read that.

I'm not saying you are selling me, but some treatment of that concern might make the paranoid wing (proud member) more comfortable.

And if you are selling me, well, nothing wrong with that, but be up front about it.

Re: Show HN: Pocketsquare – portfolios for developers

#27

Post by mynmyn »

seanwilson wrote: post #24

Looks great! I recently revamped my freelancing homepage and something like this would have made the process much quicker. By the way, I noticed your site returns a server error for pages that aren't found instead of a 404 e.g. https://pocketsquare.io/notfound

If you're interested NeedProgrammer also offers simple dev profiles for freelancers: https://needprogrammer.com/#/profiles/developer/zach-van-nes...

Re: Show HN: Pocketsquare – portfolios for developers

#28

Post by alanfriedman »

seanwilson wrote: post #24

Looks great! I recently revamped my freelancing homepage and something like this would have made the process much quicker. By the way, I noticed your site returns a server error for pages that aren't found instead of a 404 e.g. https://pocketsquare.io/notfound

Yeah there's definitely some work to be done and I have better server responses on the list. Thanks for checking it out! Also, it can't hurt to host your freelance page here too!

Re: Show HN: Pocketsquare – portfolios for developers

#29

Post by alanfriedman »

a3n wrote: post #26
alanfriedman wrote: post #4

Hey guys, thanks for checking out Pocketsquare. I built this to give devs a better way to showcase their work. For me, my public Github page isn't always the best representation of the stuff I like to work on, and LinkedIn isn't optimized to show dev work. So, Pocketsquare focuses on just showing your skills, projects (may or may not correspond to a git repo) and code snippets. You can also show work experience or ed…

Cool idea. > Oh, also: it’s free. Your target users, developers, have the "I'm a product" meme at the front of brain. It certainly immediately came to mind when I read that. I'm not saying you are selling me, but some treatment of that concern might make the paranoid wing (proud member) more comfortable. And if you are selling me, well, nothing wrong with that, but be up front about it.

Good point - I should probably spend more time working out the text on the landing page, as I could see how that could come off wrong. To be honest right now I'm just focused on making users happy with a product that's useful for them so I haven't given too much thought as to what's next. Thanks for pointing that out though - I'll definitely think about it.
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