The point is that you might not want to show toy code. Toy code I've written for fun is rarely written to the same standards I'd use for anything important, inc

The point is that you might not want to show toy code. Toy code I've written for fun is rarely written to the same standards I'd use for anything important, including code written for work. It probably won't have elaborate CI/CD tooling with a clear branching strategy. It probably won't have a comprehensive test suite. It probably won't have systematic error handling. It probably won't have carefully written comments to help other people find their way around it. Most important of all it probably won't be designed or cleaned up to the standards of good professional code, because I wrote it for fun or to solve some specific problem and not to be a portfolio piece and I stopped once the code had served its purpose. If anyone I might work with insisted on judging me on code like that they'd never get a realistic view of my level. If I wanted to show someone an example of code that did faithfully represent what I can do I'd want to show them some of the many projects I've completed to a high professional standard at work. But of course that code really is usually confidential and at least in my case that tends to be because it's important to the business and might not be public knowledge yet so it really would be very unprofessional if I went around handing it out to anyone who asked.