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Comment by redfloatplane | Hacker News Reader

Author here. This is why I think every programmer should have at least these two things: a twitter account, and a github account. A github account to publish what you do, and a twitter account to tell people. You can do this sort of thing from anywhere with an internet connection, and it's free and easy. (I also think every programmer should have business cards. Can't be contacted if nobody has your email address).

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I would question the need for a twitter account. I see programmers with twitter accounts, and it seems like they invest so much more effort to maintain it (retweets, circle-jerking, etc) than they get out of it. A github account should do just fine...if people like you, they follow you and/or your projects.

Also, if you're not very good (you're still kinda green) why advertise it?

Once something is out there, you can never take it back.

Well, I think putting that sort of thing out there is pretty admirable, too (as long as you know that it's not the best thing on the planet). Getting helpful and constructive criticism is one of the best things that can happen to programmers - especially ones without formal training. And besides, you can always delete github repositories.

I guess it depends on what your goal is. If it's to pretend to be good or if it's to become good.

Having public work means you can get direct feedback on the work you are doing and this is an excellent way of learning :)

I don't think you can really grow or develop your skills in a vacuum. We should encourage people to put their work out in the open. And discourage the negative ego talk that's so prevalent in our communities.

Very true! We can all learn from each other regardless of our level of experience. No one person knows everything. There's nothing wrong with making a mistake and learning from that and nothing wrong with others knowing that you have the balls to make a public mistake. No one will know your name otherwise.

Edit: Your comment reminds me of over-hearing a man make fun of another man who had asked a question in a forum. The irony of this was that he was sitting in the corner of a dark, smoky bar at night while making fun of another man who had the balls to ask a question in a public forum during the light of day. No one knows the guy who was making fun because he himself was too afraid to ask questions and always thought that someone like himself would criticize him as he criticized others. Technology could use less negative egos!

I get where you are coming from. I have even received high praise for the quality of my code, but I still remain quite embarrassed when publishing it. It is difficult to not judge yourself critically, and feel that everyone is going to do the same.

However, I never find myself judging others the same way. I have stumbled upon some pretty great stuff by people who, in reality, are not anywhere near the top of their field, but it doesn't matter, it remains great regardless.

I think the worst thing that can happen is that nobody finds what you have published. Marketing is difficult, even for hobby work.

http://xkcd.com/137/

That's true enough. I think some form of community account is necessary, though (even Hacker News or Reddit). I think github isn't the most discoverable type of social network - I don't really go looking for interesting bits of code on github, but I do see links to them on HN and twitter and all the rest of it.

Twitter is huge with the brogrammers.

In general, I think you mean a way to publish and a way to communicate. I closed my github and twitter accounts and re-took control by publishing source code on my website. I'll occasionally communicate things I've done that I think may interest others here or on other similar sites. I try not to over-do that though. Too many self-centered posts turn a lot of people off I think.

That's true, and it's exactly what I mean. I wrote this while thinking about some of my fellow students - many don't have their own website, for example, but they deserve to have their work seen. I named twitter because it's an extremely simple service and a very large number of tech people use it, and I named github because it's one of the easiest and most popular ways to share source code.

Certainly, though, I just mean publish and advertise. The methods and services through which you do that don't matter all that much.

a gihub account and a blog.

I prefer more suitable announcement platforms over twitter, such as

- freecode.com (formerly freshmeat.net)

- for games: happypenguin.org

- posts to related usergroup mailing lists

- posts to topic related mailing lists and newsgroups

- personal emails to friends who showed some interest

- ...

I'd add StackOverflow to that list!

I want to tell you about a network that's been growing like crazy. Anybody can get cheap accounts on it and once you do, you can associate it with anything you want.

It's super customizable; you can use it to let people find out all about you and your skills. It works great from desktops, tablets and phones.

It's called 'DNS'.

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