The majority of the code I've written was for a company which was acquired. When applying to freelance or responding to recruiters I get the "let's see your code" question.
I have built nothing of note.
So my question is, what type of projects/apps could a person undertake to improve their skill set, while developing a repository of showcase worthy code?
I've spoken to quite a few recruiters lately (1 every week or so for the last couple months) and I'll tell them "look at project x - it's the best of what I've done" and their just like "uh huh, uh huh. tell me more about it"
dude - if you'd just look at the site, you'll see. And I know they don't look because I generally monitor the site while on the phone and see no one even resembling them viewing the site.
That said - just build stuff. Take any well established app idea (group chat, restaurant finder, note taking app, etc...) build a clone, and put it somewhere so people can see it. If you want to share the code, put that there also (generally I don't show code until I'm at the interview)