I really find this hard to swallow. It fails for me on so many counts.

Firstly, code is small compared to just about anything else you might keep on your computer. All you have to do to preserve it is drop it in a directory you keep for that purpose. The code doesn't have to be organized in order to preserve it. If you back up your computer, then your code is backed up. You back up your computer don't you?

Sure, it may be hard to find some useful piece of code later if you don't organize it, but preserving it, at least, is easy.

More importantly, you never write reusable code? You never write a library that can be applied to future problems? If not, then, you may not be the type of programmer that I'd want to work with anyway. I firmly believe that the way to increased productivity for any team is to factor out useful components and make them into more general purpose libraries. To do otherwise, is to end up with a codebase that is bloated with boilerplate.

Thirdly, if coding for you is as natural as breathing, surely you can whip up a couple of pages of code as a "code portfolio" in no time. You could have done that instead of typing in the above for your pleasure.

At my company, we offer coding challenges for people who don't have a portfolio already. But really, why not just write software of your own choosing so that you don't need to do coding challenges to prove your ability? It's a far more efficient approach.