Why your Github Account is the Best Certificate you'll ever Have

Note that, once again, there is no actual data backing up this assertion.

We like to say that github does this and it seems reasonable, but that is not the same as actually showing it to be the case.

Here's the null hypothesis: nobody hires on the basis of the code you put up on github. You will find that hardly anybody even reads that code, even when you give them the link. It is meaningless unless you are already a big name for other reasons.

If you want to maintain that github is a certificate or something, the burden is on you to provide sufficient cause to reject the null hypothesis.

There is one problem with the Github account as a "certificate". It requires a significant amount of work on the part of an employer to evaluate a Github account -- they have to get a technically adept person to spend an hour or two reading it before they really learn anything from it. It takes 30 seconds for an HR person with few specialized skills to understand whether one has a certification or not.

Here's mine, warts and all: https://github.com/Ovid

I'm delighted to see someone's github when they send me a resume or CV. I actually get to see real projects and while, yes, those might be "polished" works, I find that most devs actually don't seem to publish code that's significantly better than what they produce in the workplace.

Of course, if I see a github account with no activity at all, then yes, it's probably polished.

I have a really basic question:

What does it mean to have a Github account, in the sense the article speaks of?

Is the idea that I should create an open source project and stick it on Github? Or perhaps find some open source project and start contributing to it?

Apologies for the super basic question -- I think I could piece together one myself, but I'd love to hear an answer from someone more experienced than myself.