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This barely touched on what you need to become a competent front end developer and the aesthetic competency you need to have to make something look nice. This i

This barely touched on what you need to become a competent front end developer and the aesthetic competency you need to have to make something look nice. This is the thing I most often see as completely stopping backend engineers from becoming "full stack". Full stack != learning react.

whalesalad 10y ago
So true. Full stack is understanding the layers of a modern web stack like basic webserver/port binding knowledge, basic unix skills, http, DNS, rest, serving apis, consuming apis, using queues for background jobs, database schema, avoiding n+1 queries, authentication mechanisms for browsers and clients, email (dkim+spf), serving assets, handling browser caching issues, the list goes on... an SPA with react is really just touching the surface.
- jaredsohn 10y ago
  That's not what the GP said; the GP was arguing from the other direction saying that to be considered full stack you need to understand design, too.
- jshmrsn 10y ago
  I hadn't heard the term "n+1 queries" before, thanks for mentioning it. That's something I deal with often, but didn't know it had a specific name. https://secure.phabricator.com/book/phabcontrib/article/n_plus_one/ https://secure.phabricator.com/book/phabcontrib/article/n_pl...
lcw 10y ago
I don't think aesthetics play very much if any role in being a effective front end developer. Look at Craigslist the thing is terribly ugly and dated but still widely used and functional. The aesthetics look like someone with no taste in design or modern UX wrote it. If someone writes the next CraigsList by your definition are they not a successful front end developer? Sure having a taste for design is nice but hardly necessary to be successful at the craft.
- debaserab2 10y ago
  No, they are not a successful front end developer. It is possible to have a successful website without having good front development. It's possible to create a lot of useful things that don't have good design.
  - enraged_camel 10y ago
    >>It's possible to create a lot of useful things that don't have good design. Usefulness is good design.
    - omeid2 10y ago
      If we are going to split hair, I would argue that good design is mostly reasoned with theory, usefulness is more about pragmatism.
    - debaserab2 10y ago
      No, it's not necessarily. You can have a product that produces a good result but isn't easy to use. That doesn't make it not useful.
- mrits 10y ago
  Craigslist is actually a great design. Just imagine if a UX developer had their way with it. It would look like myspace.
  - debaserab2 10y ago
    Not a good UX developer(/designer). Craigslist has a great minimalist interface. There's a lot of ways it could go wrong, and it avoids a great majority of them. That said, I don't think a lot of development has gone into actually considering their use cases and developing workflows that prefer them. Obviously, it's still a very useful site regardless, but I would not call it a well designed site.
  - mawburn 10y ago
    UX != Design
oretoz 10y ago
You have a valid point. Do you have pointers to learning Design for a programmer? I know about book 'Deisgn for hackers' and there are many resources on Photoshop/Sketch etc. but I haven't found nifty little projects like you have in programming where you design, say a toy compiler. Also Photoshop/Sketch are paid and/or platform specific. Any useful pointers would help.

whalesalad 10y ago

So true. Full stack is understanding the layers of a modern web stack like basic webserver/port binding knowledge, basic unix skills, http, DNS, rest, serving apis, consuming apis, using queues for background jobs, database schema, avoiding n+1 queries, authentication mechanisms for browsers and clients, email (dkim+spf), serving assets, handling browser caching issues, the list goes on... an SPA with react is really just touching the surface.

jaredsohn 10y ago
That's not what the GP said; the GP was arguing from the other direction saying that to be considered full stack you need to understand design, too.
jshmrsn 10y ago
I hadn't heard the term "n+1 queries" before, thanks for mentioning it. That's something I deal with often, but didn't know it had a specific name. https://secure.phabricator.com/book/phabcontrib/article/n_plus_one/ https://secure.phabricator.com/book/phabcontrib/article/n_pl...

lcw 10y ago

I don't think aesthetics play very much if any role in being a effective front end developer. Look at Craigslist the thing is terribly ugly and dated but still widely used and functional. The aesthetics look like someone with no taste in design or modern UX wrote it. If someone writes the next CraigsList by your definition are they not a successful front end developer? Sure having a taste for design is nice but hardly necessary to be successful at the craft.

debaserab2 10y ago
No, they are not a successful front end developer. It is possible to have a successful website without having good front development. It's possible to create a lot of useful things that don't have good design.
- enraged_camel 10y ago
  >>It's possible to create a lot of useful things that don't have good design. Usefulness is good design.
  - omeid2 10y ago
    If we are going to split hair, I would argue that good design is mostly reasoned with theory, usefulness is more about pragmatism.
  - debaserab2 10y ago
    No, it's not necessarily. You can have a product that produces a good result but isn't easy to use. That doesn't make it not useful.
mrits 10y ago
Craigslist is actually a great design. Just imagine if a UX developer had their way with it. It would look like myspace.
- debaserab2 10y ago
  Not a good UX developer(/designer). Craigslist has a great minimalist interface. There's a lot of ways it could go wrong, and it avoids a great majority of them. That said, I don't think a lot of development has gone into actually considering their use cases and developing workflows that prefer them. Obviously, it's still a very useful site regardless, but I would not call it a well designed site.
- mawburn 10y ago
  UX != Design

oretoz 10y ago

You have a valid point. Do you have pointers to learning Design for a programmer? I know about book 'Deisgn for hackers' and there are many resources on Photoshop/Sketch etc. but I haven't found nifty little projects like you have in programming where you design, say a toy compiler. Also Photoshop/Sketch are paid and/or platform specific. Any useful pointers would help.