[wimplash]

Whatever you do, make it publicly-visible. Companies will not hire a software developer with no work experience, who can only say that they are able to program in X.

If you are able to...

* Demonstrate your abilities in programming language X by showing them your code through a public repository (i.e. Google-code, github, bitbucket, etc...)

* Demonstrate your communication abilities/soft skills by showing them the supporting documentation (i.e. a development blog, user documentation, etc...)

* Demonstrate your ability to explain/defend the design/implementation choices made in the development of your application

...then you have a pretty good foot in the door for getting into the software development industry.

On the converse, however, not all hiring managers will/are able to take this much time when investigating potential candidates.