If I were an employer, I would be more impressed with the way the author responded to feedback/criticism and was able to improve her site on future iterations more so than I'd be impressed with the site itself (although it looks great).
I immediately thought that, too. I've worked with junior developers who, instead of learning from their mistakes, were defensive in code reviews and never took time to learn from their mistakes.
I've been with senior developers who, in code reviews, made a point of bringing down the junior devs and flogging them over some minor mistakes they made instead of fostering a learning environment :)
I'm 3ish months into my first post-graduation development job. It's really hard to go from school, where results counted, to an internship, where there was far more emphasis on getting shit done than how it was done (enterprise back office systems) to a professional software development job on a fully functional profitable web app.
It's not so much that the skillset that's required is different, though that's certainly part of it, it's that us junior devs are simply not used to having our code scrutinized very much. Sure, we've done some pair programming and group projects, but that was with other inexperienced undergrad/grad students, and it was difficult to just say "this code sucks, do it over" to an equal, just as much as it was difficult to hear that.
It's simply a mindset that is hard to break out of. A lot of us, myself included, were not ready for the reality that is a code review. I've gotten a lot more used to it, and I'm settling nicely into my role I think. Until now my mindset has been "make it work". I'm now transitioning to "make it work well. It's still hard to have to defend your code or methodology, or worse yet, during code review have the sudden realization that it is indefensible.
> or worse yet, during code review have the sudden realization that it is indefensible.
When all else - I mean google and more importantly talking with colleagues during breaks about what you're doing - to make you realize this is the point of code reviews. And it's good - after that realization you suddenly have one more known mistake under your belt which you won't make in future.
When I was young I practiced kendo. One of the things I learned then was that when a partner hits you, he's actually helping you realize your technique has a flaw. That's how you grow as a swordsman - and as a developer too.
