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He's not a frontend developer, he's a designer, who happens to do a bit of javascript. That's fine, but it obviously colored what he thinks about full-stack dev

He's not a frontend developer, he's a designer, who happens to do a bit of javascript. That's fine, but it obviously colored what he thinks about full-stack developers, and frankly it's a load of bull. First the idea that the term fullstack is somehow a capitalist conspiracy to maximize profits over the poor developer is beyond misguided. Fullstack development came to be because of the rising popularity of SPAs and the shifting of what was once strictly backend development into client side (templates, routing, etc...). Not all code is the same, but the separation to backend and frontend is artificial - MVC in js or in C# is the same no matter what language you write it in. I'm a proud full-stacker and would hate to work in an organization the article paints as paradise - a place where I'll have to wait for someone to write my web-services or for the DBA to add a column to a database. In fact it is that enterprise way of thinking that made me, and I think many people, prefer fullstack work. To me full-stack is about accountability, it's about not having someone else become a bottleneck to a feature you are in charge of, it's about the ability to see a feature from start to finish and make it the way you, as the one who actually works on it, think it should be.

cphoover 8y ago
Bingo... I've gone from a company where I worked in service and api layers as well as in the UI. To a large enterprise with well-defined silos...where my role is solely as a Sr UI developer this role change has been the most regrettable of my career. Architectural decisions should take into account all cross cutting aspects of a system. I just think it's such a lack of imagination and passion for someone to be satisfied with just doing CSS or frontend-js work too. The best dev's I have ever worked with with are curious about all sorts of things. Have good vision as to where design decisions should be made (ie what part of the stack) and have a good sense of programming patterns and practice across the different layers. If all someone knows how to do us UI inevitably they will view the UI as their hammer to solve every problem. This is the case even when business logic or computation should happen at a higher level so as to serve multiple client platforms. Also I find it supremely sexist to say that frontend is a girly thing. The VP of my last company was a female with a post graduate degree studying operating systems. That to me is the real gate-keeping.
pseudalopex 8y ago
I associate the "full stack" trend with the rise of startups, not the rise of SPAs. The article is mainly about how writing HTML and CSS in JavaScript means that designers are expected to be full stack developers. The author says he is confident developers can handle it. Where do you get the idea he thinks there should even be a DBA? If "full-stack is about accountability", does that mean specialization is about avoiding accountability?
jayar95 8y ago
I found the political angle he took to be daft as well. I became a full stack developer for the same reasons as you, I like assuming the responsibility of every aspect of a product's development- plus, working in different aspects keeps things fresh. Building beautiful ui with react is really fun, so is building the services that app talks to. Personally, being really good at both of those things has been super profitable for me.

cphoover 8y ago

Bingo... I've gone from a company where I worked in service and api layers as well as in the UI. To a large enterprise with well-defined silos...where my role is solely as a Sr UI developer this role change has been the most regrettable of my career. Architectural decisions should take into account all cross cutting aspects of a system. I just think it's such a lack of imagination and passion for someone to be satisfied with just doing CSS or frontend-js work too. The best dev's I have ever worked with with are curious about all sorts of things. Have good vision as to where design decisions should be made (ie what part of the stack) and have a good sense of programming patterns and practice across the different layers. If all someone knows how to do us UI inevitably they will view the UI as their hammer to solve every problem. This is the case even when business logic or computation should happen at a higher level so as to serve multiple client platforms. Also I find it supremely sexist to say that frontend is a girly thing. The VP of my last company was a female with a post graduate degree studying operating systems. That to me is the real gate-keeping.

pseudalopex 8y ago

I associate the "full stack" trend with the rise of startups, not the rise of SPAs. The article is mainly about how writing HTML and CSS in JavaScript means that designers are expected to be full stack developers. The author says he is confident developers can handle it. Where do you get the idea he thinks there should even be a DBA? If "full-stack is about accountability", does that mean specialization is about avoiding accountability?

jayar95 8y ago

I found the political angle he took to be daft as well. I became a full stack developer for the same reasons as you, I like assuming the responsibility of every aspect of a product's development- plus, working in different aspects keeps things fresh. Building beautiful ui with react is really fun, so is building the services that app talks to. Personally, being really good at both of those things has been super profitable for me.