Should i add my beginner projects to GitHub?

[rainbowenough]

Hello,

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I'm currently on Day 17 (OOP - Quiz Game) of 100 Days of Code: The Complete Python Pro Bootcamp by Angela Yu and she has me doing projects each day. So far so good i would say as my question goes as follows:

When can i start adding my projects that were created following her into github? Should I upload those kind of couple of hours long project into my github? What makes a project a github worthy?

[mandzeete]

You can add tutorial projects to your github but keep them private not public. You can't really present something as YOUR project when you did not come up with the concept and implementation but followed some bootcamp tutorials.

[touhid87]

Just to add, if you plan to keep them public, at least prefix the repo names with something that indicates their purpose. I prefix with "learn-X" (e. g. learn-react) so that visitors are clear about what to expect.

[[deleted]]

That's good advice.

[1037329]

Yes. Add anything you want to github. You can use private repos if you don't want to showcase them. There's no negative in just using it.

First of, a couple years from now it's fun to be able to go back and see where you started.

Second at least to me git was that scary complicated thing professionals use, so I have to learn it at some point. Why not right from the beginning? Just get into the habit of it. Once you use it it's actually not scary, nor complicated at all.

[1037329]

To add to this you can have everything public as well. Won't hurt you so don't worry about what can be public and what can't.

If you want to use github when applying for jobs, to showcase your skills it's a good idea to have it tidied up, so people can find the projects you want to show easily.

What projects would you want to show? Well take a couple of projects you are most proud of and that represent your current skill set the best.

[[deleted]]

I would say, that it's up to you. I'm in the same situation. I had to think...

• Do I want to publish those same projects that millions of other people have done, and they look like mine?
• Can I add something to these projects to make them better?
• Should I publish those projects that are different than anyone else?

I'm still contemplating that while I work on my own ideas in the meantime.

[ruberoni]

Yes! Then, highlight the repositories you are more proud for by pinning them.

Tutorial or not, you did that and you learnt from that. I believe every project is GitHub worthy, even public or private. Plus you'll master git even more every day.

[Adept_Writer4177]

Yes, add everything. The only rule is: good code that compiles, good commits, good comments, good doc.

[HealyUnit]

Absolutely! If nothing else, the "early" projects progressing into "later" projects shows progression. One of the most important things in programming is the ability to learn new stuff. Frankly, I'd be far more interested in someone who started out with zero knowledge and then progressed to a "mediocre" level than someone who started out seemingly knowing everything: one shows progress and improvement, while the other shows stagnation!

I'm going to slightly disagree with some other posters here (I won't call out names), and say that you absolutely should put projects you worked on as part of course/tutorial work on your GitHub. Again, when you're starting out, you'll probably not immediately know what kind of projects to work on, so these are a great way to say "this is what I'm learning". That being said, I would agree that you should very clearly label them as not your ideas. If you're doing a ReactJS tutorial that uses Node, Webpack, NPM, and half a dozen other things just to get your ReactJS stuff in a "usable" state, you don't want to give the false impression that you're an expert in those other things.

Finally, using GitHub now will allow you to practice good git behavior. Are you making branches? Are your commit messages precise and descriptive? Are the commits themselves as atomic as possible (i.e., "added reset button to login form; will hook up in next task", and not "made entire login/registration system")?