Originally Posted by sarettah

I think any professional craftsman has to spend time, effort and money on their tools.

Yes, a programmer has the challenge of keeping up with the current "trend" in code. Multiple CMS systems, multiple frameworks, etc.

BUT, a designer has many of the same challenges. Keeping up with what version Adobe decoided to release today and all the various cmses, themes and templates that their clients are using.

And both Programmers and Designers have to be constantly educating clients on what a Programmer does versus what a Designer does and it does not help the issue that many designers do some programming work and many programmers do some design work.

Me, I tend to handle it by only taking on tasks that I know I can do a good job on. If someone approaches me and tells me what they want and I don't do that particular thing and am not real excited of adding it to my toolkit then I tell them up front that I don't do it and try to point them to someone that can.

The portfolio has always been a difficult one for me. As you indicated, many programming projects there isn't a whole lot to see except the final results. So, I basically do a traditional thing of keeping my resume' up to date and just point folks to my linkedin page.

.