
Show HN: Pocketsquare – portfolios for developers - alanfriedman
https://pocketsquare.io
======
alanfriedman
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 education. I tried to make it simple and straightforward for non-technical
visitors yet also visually appealing so it's something you want to show
people.

Thanks again and I appreciate any feedback you guys have.

Edit: I didn't have time to put social links on the landing page, so for
anyone who wants to stay up to date as I make pocketsquare more awesome, you
can follow the Twitter account here:
[https://twitter.com/getpocketsquare](https://twitter.com/getpocketsquare) or
add your email to this list and I'll let you know when new features roll out:
[http://bit.ly/1RvGHIn](http://bit.ly/1RvGHIn)

Thanks!

~~~
a3n
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.

~~~
alanfriedman
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.

~~~
shostack
And that's perfectly fine, but then you end up on the other side of the coin
which is:

"How do I know you don't plan to sell me out down the line or that you'll
disappear in a few months once I've invested time and energy into setting
things up?"

So really you need to make sure both are addressed ;)

Congrats on shipping!

------
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/](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.

~~~
alanfriedman
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.

------
mgkimsal
15-20 language/framework icons don't tell me much, despite telling me too
much. what's the estimated level of expertise? I don't believe someone who
shows that many different things is a master at any of them (whether they are
or not, I don't believe it). grouping those icons - data, web, language, etc -
might help as well.

------
fougerejo
I don't see how the snippets bring value to the portfolio, can't imagine a use
case.

Anyway good initiative!

~~~
lolptdr
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.

~~~
fougerejo
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".

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

------
topfpflanze
Needs a sign-up/sign-in with Github button

~~~
sjbase
I would also add portfolio integration with github. Having to manually
replicate code over to a new site will turn some people away.

------
cableshaft
Yeah, you need to add more languages and frameworks, and not just the things
that are out and popular now. I'd want to include projects from awhile back,
personally, and that includes projects made from Flash. I know its
unfashionable now (and I no longer use it), but it's how a lot of devs got
started.

If you want game developers to find this useful, you might want to consider
adding:

C++, C, Unity, Unreal SDK, Cocos2D, Lua, Flash, Havok, Direct X, OpenGL, VR.
Maybe show a list of consoles to show specific console dev experience.

~~~
alanfriedman
Thanks for the tip on gaming languages. And I agree on Flash - I actually
started as an AS3 dev so should've known. More languages/skills are coming
soon.

~~~
nicolewhite
You should also think about catering to data scientists. It's not an option in
the "specialty" dropdown and you don't have languages like Scala, R, Julia, or
MATLAB.

~~~
alanfriedman
Yeah I had that same thought actually. Data scientists are becoming more
common lately.

------
fweespeech
Just a suggestion...

If you are going to have a big list of icons the first thing that comes to
mind is "Click on one". Analysis of programming language(s) used isn't hard
given its built into the GitHub api:

[https://developer.github.com/v3/repos/#list-
languages](https://developer.github.com/v3/repos/#list-languages)

So if you allowed an "import Github Repo option" then linked those icons to
the "examples/repositories/snippets" in those languages that would help.

You already seem to be able to designate icons-per-project/snippet so you
shouldn't need to add much beyond a hyperlink on the icon that scrolls to the
first appropriate projects and/or allows the user to designate the project to
scroll to.

I'd say have a page listing the relevant projects as well by technology [e.g.
A "Would you like to know more...?"] but I'm not sure that should be the
default behavior.

Similarly, I'd encourage/enforce linking to test suite(s) and/or documentation
as a requirement to list anything larger than a snippet. That might be a bit
too opinionated but I think it encourages "new" developers to get into the
right practice of having some sort of documentation [even if it is just a test
suite].

------
Kudos
You're making use of the deferred anti-pattern [0] on your own profile page
[1].

[0] [https://github.com/petkaantonov/bluebird/wiki/Promise-
anti-p...](https://github.com/petkaantonov/bluebird/wiki/Promise-anti-
patterns#the-deferred-anti-pattern) [1]
[https://pocketsquare.io/alanfriedman](https://pocketsquare.io/alanfriedman)

~~~
alanfriedman
Because "request" returns a promise? I created the deferred object because I'm
waiting on multiple async operations (get gravatar url, download gravatar
locally and upload to s3). Or am I missing something?

~~~
WorldMaker
The trick is learning how to compose promises out of one another. For
instance, then() on a promise doesn't just support a callback, but another
promise or a function that returns another promise. Often you can build
multiple async operations as chains and flows of promises. Additionally there
are "higher level" compositions of promises such as Q.whenAll(promise1,
promise2, ...).then(), making it easier to deal with things like parallel
promises.

Also, it's often cleaner to use something like Q.nfcall to turn a callback
accepting function (like request in your example) itself into a promise that
can be chained. (I just noticed that this is contrary to Q's own documentation
which surprisingly is pro-deferred.)

------
jnye131
You need a better differentiation between skills - this is very web orientated
at the moment. If I'm a native mobile developer is that full stack? Backend?

There also needs to be a bigger range of languages. Alternative contact
details would be nice, or, links to other profiles and the option not to show
the email address.

~~~
alanfriedman
Yeah, one of the most common requests I've gotten is adding more
languages/frameworks, and I'm working on getting that out as soon as possible.
It is very front-end dev focused at the moment, so I'll be broadening the
options to give all developers what they're looking for. Thanks for checking
it out!

~~~
mathgeek
I think the request was to add other options besides Front/Back/Full.

------
arsalanb
I see a few great suggestions from people here, but I want to add — I see the
grand vision here. This is a great "First-step" in this direction. I feel it's
great because it does away with the shitty "sign-in-with-github-and-youre-
done" thing. Comprehensive, yet minimal. I like it.

~~~
alanfriedman
Thanks!

------
zatkin
Good work so far. Just a few things:

\- I graduate from university in 2016, but I can only choose up to 2015 for
the end date

\- This is in Chrome 45, Windows 8.1:
[http://i.imgur.com/u5xMXob.png](http://i.imgur.com/u5xMXob.png)

~~~
alanfriedman
Thanks - I'll think about how to incorporate future dates. And wow those
scrollbars look terrible. Sorry about that! I think I can fix it pretty easily
with CSS overflow.

~~~
fweespeech
I'd suggest to do this year +10 and set the input to the current year. That
should cover pretty much anyone.

------
RickS
It's a fine line between "minimal and designery" and "understyled". I think
this falls slightly to the wrong side.

Also, the icon thing encourages people to check the most number of boxes, even
if they're not skilled there. This is reasonable and something lots of devs
do, but it will hurt your appearance to people who hire. Everyone I've ever
talked to about hiring developers has an opinion somewhere in the realm of
"I'd rather see resumes with one or two languages that they're strong with,
than have to spend time fishing out which of 20 languages they actually write
every day"

~~~
alanfriedman
Fair points. As for the design, it can always be tweaked, but I have gotten
positive feedback around the simplicity and minimalist look so would have to
think it through.

As for the icons, my theory is that devs are free to add whatever skills they
want to their own portfolio or resumé anyway, but they're going to ultimately
be responsible for demonstrating that knowledge to employers, clients, etc, so
it probably wouldn't be beneficial to them to exaggerate their skills. I do
see your point though.

------
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](https://pocketsquare.io/notfound)

~~~
mynmyn
If you're interested NeedProgrammer also offers simple dev profiles for
freelancers: [https://needprogrammer.com/#/profiles/developer/zach-van-
nes...](https://needprogrammer.com/#/profiles/developer/zach-van-ness)

------
weego
I'm sorry but I feel like you have to do more than whack some icons on a
bootstrap page for something like this. That level of simplicity requires
exceptional presentation for it to be valuable.

~~~
alanfriedman
Thanks for the feedback. What kinds of features would make it more appealing
for you?

------
bcanzanella
What/where is your privacy policy?

~~~
alanfriedman
I plan on adding it today and will send it to any users who signed up before
it was posted. I know how important it is so it's my top priority to finish by
end of day.

------
desicochrane
Nice work man, I am working on something similar - would be cool to chat? PM
me on twitter @desicochrane

------
icechen1
I... can't change my password. Nice and clean look though!

~~~
alanfriedman
Sorry about that - it's at the top of my list!

------
ilovefood
As I said on reddit yesterday, I like it, keep up the good work

~~~
alanfriedman
Thanks!

------
fimdomeio
issue: Can't reorder experience items and they are not sorted by date.

~~~
alanfriedman
Yeah, this is on my list for sure. Projects, experience and education will all
be sorted by date until there's an option to manually sort. I'm working on it!

------
0xdragon
Any custom domain love?

~~~
alanfriedman
Absolutely - it's on the roadmap.

