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If I were looking at a Github portfolio, I would be more concerned about reading their documentation. I want to know about their communication skills and why they think their code matters. What problem were they trying to solve? Even if it was to scratch an itch that they had and only three people including themselves ever use it. What was their motivation for doing it?

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I find the signal from this is still too low for it to be worth looking into. Quality of documentation has a lot to do with:

1. Correctness

2. Matching the content to the intended audience

I find that in general I have no time to check correctness, nor is it obvious who the intended audience is. A blurb and basic setup instructions is fine if the intended audience is the author. A tool intended for a particular set of power users may not require motivation. The author may well know how to write more accessible documentation and chose not to for a sensible reason.

I am more concerned about #2 than number one. I want to know how well they communicate. But then again, I’m highly biased toward communication skills.

It’s almost impossible to be a force multiplier without them.

I think we have similar priorities, I just find github to be an extremely poor predictor of on-the-job communication.

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