Thats a harsh way to put it but somehow true. Its less about imagination and more about ability.
The people who need this site the most are people who are new to programming or don't have any university background (online courses, self taught). Unlike you these people DO struggle starting their own project and they DO need some help setting up their node.js environment.
The problem is that many of us who learned programming on our own have gone through these initial struggles (although we might have forgotten it). People who are learning online are led to believe that becoming a programmer is as easy as taking a code academy course and when they finish the course, they can't do much cause they have been gamified and handheld too much. Most of these people are giving up because there is this sharp fall from finishing an online course and becoming a 'developer'. We are trying to help these people.
Good developers are not in terrible need of a portfolio but the new ones or the ones who are changing their career path are in need of it to actually get a job.
I don't think anybody doing your project should discourage you. It's usually in the process of trying to do something that has been done before that you get an insight or think about a better way of doing it. Plus, doing things that have been done before is a very good way to learn. Thats how in the old days apprentices became masters.
As for the alg/ds. In my opinion, there are some fundamental things that you need to know about DS/alg that make you a better developer. What people usually get wrong is assuming that it is the applicability of the algorithms or datastructure that matters ( who cares if you know about a Red/Black Tree ! ) . I think its more about the patterns and the way they allow you to think.
Understanding how tree traversal is done may not be directly useful in your work but helps you understand recursive thinking which is super important. Knowing how QuickSort/MergeSort work doesn't have any application in real life but makes you think about problems with a divide/conquer approach in mind which is again super practical. You will never write a Hash/Dictionary but knowing what is the difference between one and an array has immense applicability on your work.
My advice to you: stay away from memorizing DS/Alg. Throw out your "cracking the coding interview" book if you have one and pick a algorithm and datastructure book and try to understand it. Then you can move on to solving problems yourself and you will realize that you are a better developer for it. Here is what I would suggest:
perfect. We would love to talk with you more to see what you will see as valuable on the resume of a candidate. I will be really happy if you could spare a few moments anytime you are free. My email is [email protected]
We don't charge anyone for doing the projects and all the code that a person does is owned by themselves (we dont even host your code or know where it is). Anyone that works on Zyring can do whatever they want with their code.
"Functional examples for software that lacks good functional examples" sounds super valuable for a portfolio also they create tangible value for people who need them. Your dropwizard example at https://github.com/exratione/scala-dropwizard-guice-example is a perfect example.
Thanks. I agree."The art of matching a problem with a solution with minimal effort" will be the core of software engineering The rest will someday be automated or delegated. (just like any other engineering field matured to that)
Perfect. We would love to talk to you about what you would find useful for you on the iOS projects. We have a bunch of projects for iOS but are in the process of refining them. I would be super happy if you emailed me at [email protected]
BTW, the person who is defining the iOS projects is one of the devs on Microsoft Office for iOS and Mac (which ironically is the most complex app for ios).
Good point. Thanks for the feedback. You really don't need to sign up to experience what projects we offer but some stuff requires sign up as you said. We will make sure that we remove the ambiguities and work on our copywriting.
As for your questions :
1- Experts in the field working with us have come up with Applications. We are working with some companies so that they can put sponsored applications on our website that they would love to see on a candidates resume. In addition, if anyone has an idea for a project they can submit it on the project page and we will work with them to refine it and put it there.
2- The community does the code reviews. As you said this is unclear right now on the landing page. Basically, if there is a person who have done the project before you with a good score, they will review the code. Reviewing someone's code is also part of your portfolio so you get a score for doing it.
Thanks for feedback. Apologies. Most of the stuff we do requires a bit of javascript. We are going to definitely add something to our backlog so that people with disabled JS can use it.
We are still trying to figure out the right size of projects and who it benefits the most. Obviously, We have heard arguments for the both sides. Would really appreciate if I could get your input on it too. If you are interested in talking for few minutes at anytime. Email me at : [email protected]
Co-founder here. I am completely agreeing with you and I am one of the people who hates the culture you mentioned.
We created this website for people who are new to programming or people changing careers. People who have not taken a university path (taken online courses, self taught) but find it difficult to get a job because they don't have anything on their resume. They find it intimidating to contribute to open source projects and don't really know how to start a project on their own.
Can you give an example of something that you find large and interesting ?
Did you have a chance to take a look at the actual projects ? The projects are modeled after things that are already on production (Zillow, Medium, Flipboard). They are meant to get you started on those things.
AWS console works really well ?
It's one of the worst designed pieces of software I have ever used. Pretty much everybody who uses AWS heavily, switches to CLI after loosing their sanity working on the console.