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> I remember a decade ago when a front-end developer meant you handled HTML/CSS/JavaScript/Apache/PHP/MySQL. Wait a minute. If front-end developers handled Apa

by fizixer 10y ago

> I remember a decade ago when a front-end developer meant you handled HTML/CSS/JavaScript/Apache/PHP/MySQL. Wait a minute. If front-end developers handled Apache/PHP/MySQL too then what did back-end developers handle? I used to think front-end means client-side (HTML/CSS/Javascript) and back-end means server-side (Apache-or-nginx/PHP-or-Python-or-Ruby/MySQL-or-PostgresQL).

mattmanser 10y ago
Check out HN search for "front end development" from 7 years ago: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=front%20end%20development&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=custom&type=story&dateStart=1107216000&dateEnd=1269820800 https://hn.algolia.com/?query=front%20end%20development&sort... Three pages of low vote threads with the occasional mention of front-end development. There wasn't much of a term of front-end development 7 years ago. It's a new thing. You had back-end devs who would do some funky front-end stuff with often atrocious UIs and a bunch of designers who would hack together some jQuery plugins badly. The highest voted story from 7 years ago is talking about converting PSD to HTML/CSS, which many of us back then would have sneered at being called development.
- wheelerwj 10y ago
  Yeah, I feel like the notion of a dedicated front end engineer as oppossed to an engineer working with a contract designer is relatively new. A few years ago, I was working contract at MS, and they had this concept of DevOps which seemed so weird to me. It was like a marriage between IT and engineering. Only in the last few years has DevOps come to stand on its own as a dedicated discipline. which actually gives me some perspective for the speed at which FE tools seem be iterating. I'll have to keep that in mind moving forward.
Washuu 10y ago
Seven years ago when I was starting my current job that is what I was doing; which was all of it. From taking design's PSDs to turn them into markup, to programming the back end, and occasionally traveling to the data center to setup servers and networking. The "Full Stack developer plus SysOps" of trades. My job was not labeled as front end, back end, DevOps, or SysOps. We did not really use those terms that are much more common place today. Just an engineer who was wholly responsible for various web properties from end user experience to server up time.
- fizixer 10y ago
  Thanks. In which case OC is still wrong. It's not that "a decade ago when a front-end developer meant you handled [X, Y, Z...]" but "a decade ago there was practically no such thing as front-end development, only web development...".
  - chrisabrams 10y ago
    It can get quite confusing on the terminology as the landscape has changed so much :O
  - chrisabrams 10y ago
    It can get quite confusing on the terminology as the landscape has changed so much :O
  - chrisabrams 10y ago
    It can get quite confusing on the terminology as the landscape has changed so much :O
dagw 10y ago
what did back-end developers handle? Making sure Apache/PHP/MySQL didn't fall on their face under load and yelling at the front end guy to optimize his bloody SQL queries. At least that is what I did.

by fizixer 10y ago

mattmanser 10y ago

Check out HN search for "front end development" from 7 years ago: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=front%20end%20development&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=custom&type=story&dateStart=1107216000&dateEnd=1269820800 https://hn.algolia.com/?query=front%20end%20development&sort... Three pages of low vote threads with the occasional mention of front-end development. There wasn't much of a term of front-end development 7 years ago. It's a new thing. You had back-end devs who would do some funky front-end stuff with often atrocious UIs and a bunch of designers who would hack together some jQuery plugins badly. The highest voted story from 7 years ago is talking about converting PSD to HTML/CSS, which many of us back then would have sneered at being called development.

wheelerwj 10y ago
Yeah, I feel like the notion of a dedicated front end engineer as oppossed to an engineer working with a contract designer is relatively new. A few years ago, I was working contract at MS, and they had this concept of DevOps which seemed so weird to me. It was like a marriage between IT and engineering. Only in the last few years has DevOps come to stand on its own as a dedicated discipline. which actually gives me some perspective for the speed at which FE tools seem be iterating. I'll have to keep that in mind moving forward.

Washuu 10y ago

Seven years ago when I was starting my current job that is what I was doing; which was all of it. From taking design's PSDs to turn them into markup, to programming the back end, and occasionally traveling to the data center to setup servers and networking. The "Full Stack developer plus SysOps" of trades. My job was not labeled as front end, back end, DevOps, or SysOps. We did not really use those terms that are much more common place today. Just an engineer who was wholly responsible for various web properties from end user experience to server up time.

fizixer 10y ago
Thanks. In which case OC is still wrong. It's not that "a decade ago when a front-end developer meant you handled [X, Y, Z...]" but "a decade ago there was practically no such thing as front-end development, only web development...".
- chrisabrams 10y ago
  It can get quite confusing on the terminology as the landscape has changed so much :O
- chrisabrams 10y ago
  It can get quite confusing on the terminology as the landscape has changed so much :O
- chrisabrams 10y ago
  It can get quite confusing on the terminology as the landscape has changed so much :O

dagw 10y ago

what did back-end developers handle? Making sure Apache/PHP/MySQL didn't fall on their face under load and yelling at the front end guy to optimize his bloody SQL queries. At least that is what I did.