4 ms·

>Someone with understanding of both FE and BE is worth as much as one of each... Someone with understanding of both FE and BE is valuable in certain situations

>Someone with understanding of both FE and BE is worth as much as one of each... Someone with understanding of both FE and BE is valuable in certain situations. Companies love the idea of a "full stack engineer" because they believe they are getting two for the price of one. But in practice, and accounting for exceptions, that's not necessarily the case. A full-time FE with equal experience will be better at the front than a FE/BE and a full-time BE with equal experience will be better at the back than a FE/BE. This is the reality of having deep experience in a specific domain. As an attempt at an example, if you went to college and got an English minor and a CompSci minor you'd be capable in both areas but you would likely not be as knowledgeable as an English major nor a CompSci major within the respective domain. This divide becomes much more visible when you see a FE/BE architect a solution versus a full time FE or BE. When fixing bugs and implementing straight-forward features a FE/BE has a handy skill set. But when you move past that point, deep experience within an area starts to show it's value.

naniwaduni 7y ago
> This is the reality of having deep experience in a specific domain. This seems like it should be true abstractly, but concretely I've never met anyone with deep experience in a specific domain who didn't in the process gain enough experience in other domains to have basic competence in multiple domains. Not necessarily as much as specialists in those domains, but it's practically required to achieve the depths of experience in the domain you think they specialized in. (Which is not usually the domain they thought they were specializing in.) This is particularly relevant where there isn't a clean separation of concerns and the involved skills are highly transferable.
- knightofmars 7y ago
  Basic competence is just as you stated, basic. If you are BE with basic competence in FE then I would argue you're not a BE/FE. You're a BE who has basic knowledge of how FE work is done.
hinkley 7y ago
It's often the case that a company decides to filter down the infinite possibilities of the programming world to a strict subset. What's left can often be a little boring, and that's on purpose. So in a world where your choices are 1) learn other tech within our toolbox or 2) learn stuff in your domain but outside of the scope of your current work... only one of those is okay to do much of on work time. All those ES2018 features and CSS variables may be cool things a front-end engineer should be learning, but if we have to support older browsers then I don't get to use any of it.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  Until suddenly the requirement to support older browsers is dropped, or you get shifted to another project, and then these ES2018 features would come in handy. Learning only the stuff that covers your immediate working needs isn't a winning strategy, neither for you nor for the company.
  - hinkley 7y ago
    If you are 'learning' stuff open-loop (with no feedback from users or peers), then you are deluding yourself about how much you've actually learned. You're one important but terribly insufficient step above book learning. No battle plan survives contact with the enemy. There are tons of strategies I know to solve problems that I never use because it confuses other people (and some of them confuse me too when I look at them six months later). That's experience. That's wisdom. You won't find that in a private github repository, and only those who already know what they're looking for will find it in a book.
    - TeMPOraL 7y ago
      > If you are 'learning' stuff open-loop (with no feedback from users or peers), then you are deluding yourself about how much you've actually learned. You're one important but terribly insufficient step above book learning. Book learning ain't bad; in my experience, most of the developers I know would do well if they picked an actual book every now and then. It's not as good as hands-on experience, but still miles ahead of "learning" by StackOverflow-driven development. Experience is an important piece of the puzzle of wisdom, but it's not the whole thing. You need to also have understanding, and reading (and thinking about what you read) is a good way to acquire insight. WRT. closing the loop, your users and peers aren't the only way to close a loop (and arguably, they can only provide certain kinds of feedback that are very context-specific). Trying things out for yourself is also a good way to close the loop through feedback from reality itself (e.g. whether something works, or how difficult you find it, are such pieces of feedback). On top of that, peer/customer feedback makes no sense for a lot of useful knowledge - for instance the new ES2018 and CSS features you've mentioned upthread.
itronitron 7y ago
I disagree, there is a point when having too much 'deep experience' in either BE or FE (usually BE) becomes counter-productive to performing useful work.
- knightofmars 7y ago
  Then why do Google (and others) hire specifically for FE and BE roles?
  - pluto9 7y ago
    I have no opinion on the issue being discussed, but the fact that Google does things a particular way is not evidence that that way is correct. It is entirely possible that Google would be better off hiring full-stack developers.
TeMPOraL 7y ago
> As an attempt at an example, if you went to college and got an English minor and a CompSci minor you'd be capable in both areas but you would likely not be as knowledgeable as an English major nor a CompSci major within the respective domain. I don't think this analogy works, because CompSci and English are pretty unrelated to each other as fields, whereas frontend and backend by definition work together to create a product. That makes a person experienced in both worth more when working on either, because they're more likely to have in mind the entire system when they do design decisions pertaining to their side of the network.
- knightofmars 7y ago
  I did say it was an attempt. :)
woutr_be 7y ago
I need to disagree with you here, I consider myself full stack, but if you were to ask, FE would be my deep experience. And for me this is perfect, I have no problems with any FE work, and the same goes for BE work. Sure, we have BE engineers with very deep experience, but I've never found myself in a position where I couldn't keep up with them. I acknowledge a lack some knowledge in BE, especially when it comes to deeper CompSci domains, but it has never held me back. But in general, I think this is just a different mindset, I love being able to be independent, and complete a stories from FE to BE. I used to be in a position where I could only do FE work, and it really scared me. I had no clue where critical data was coming from, if something went wrong, I couldn't debug our APIs, I was in the dark constantly. Now if something goes wrong, I can switch over to our backend, debug, write extra test cases to cover the bug and push code. I also understand what BE engineers are talking about, and when designing a new feature, it's much easier to come up with new APIs.
- knightofmars 7y ago
  Knowledge about how the other side of the fence works doesn't suddenly make a full-stack engineer. I'm sure if we actually came up with a ratio (80/20 vs 50/50) of work it would provide a clearer understanding about when a person is FE, BE, or FE/BE. Alternatively, we could look at the type of work the individual is doing. For example, in your role are you going to be an architect doing solutions for the back-end?
  - woutr_be 7y ago
    It’s not just knowledge, I can actually do all the work, and yes, I could design solutions. It’s just that my real deep knowledge would be FE. But I consider myself full stack because I can do both sides without a problem. In my team I’m just the only FE, so naturally most of that work falls on me. There are months where I only did BE stories.
syndacks 7y ago
I double majored in English and Economics and consider myself an amazing full stack developer.
- knightofmars 7y ago
  "But in practice, and accounting for exceptions..."

naniwaduni 7y ago

> This is the reality of having deep experience in a specific domain. This seems like it should be true abstractly, but concretely I've never met anyone with deep experience in a specific domain who didn't in the process gain enough experience in other domains to have basic competence in multiple domains. Not necessarily as much as specialists in those domains, but it's practically required to achieve the depths of experience in the domain you think they specialized in. (Which is not usually the domain they thought they were specializing in.) This is particularly relevant where there isn't a clean separation of concerns and the involved skills are highly transferable.

knightofmars 7y ago
Basic competence is just as you stated, basic. If you are BE with basic competence in FE then I would argue you're not a BE/FE. You're a BE who has basic knowledge of how FE work is done.

hinkley 7y ago

It's often the case that a company decides to filter down the infinite possibilities of the programming world to a strict subset. What's left can often be a little boring, and that's on purpose. So in a world where your choices are 1) learn other tech within our toolbox or 2) learn stuff in your domain but outside of the scope of your current work... only one of those is okay to do much of on work time. All those ES2018 features and CSS variables may be cool things a front-end engineer should be learning, but if we have to support older browsers then I don't get to use any of it.

TeMPOraL 7y ago
Until suddenly the requirement to support older browsers is dropped, or you get shifted to another project, and then these ES2018 features would come in handy. Learning only the stuff that covers your immediate working needs isn't a winning strategy, neither for you nor for the company.
- hinkley 7y ago
  If you are 'learning' stuff open-loop (with no feedback from users or peers), then you are deluding yourself about how much you've actually learned. You're one important but terribly insufficient step above book learning. No battle plan survives contact with the enemy. There are tons of strategies I know to solve problems that I never use because it confuses other people (and some of them confuse me too when I look at them six months later). That's experience. That's wisdom. You won't find that in a private github repository, and only those who already know what they're looking for will find it in a book.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    > If you are 'learning' stuff open-loop (with no feedback from users or peers), then you are deluding yourself about how much you've actually learned. You're one important but terribly insufficient step above book learning. Book learning ain't bad; in my experience, most of the developers I know would do well if they picked an actual book every now and then. It's not as good as hands-on experience, but still miles ahead of "learning" by StackOverflow-driven development. Experience is an important piece of the puzzle of wisdom, but it's not the whole thing. You need to also have understanding, and reading (and thinking about what you read) is a good way to acquire insight. WRT. closing the loop, your users and peers aren't the only way to close a loop (and arguably, they can only provide certain kinds of feedback that are very context-specific). Trying things out for yourself is also a good way to close the loop through feedback from reality itself (e.g. whether something works, or how difficult you find it, are such pieces of feedback). On top of that, peer/customer feedback makes no sense for a lot of useful knowledge - for instance the new ES2018 and CSS features you've mentioned upthread.

itronitron 7y ago

I disagree, there is a point when having too much 'deep experience' in either BE or FE (usually BE) becomes counter-productive to performing useful work.

knightofmars 7y ago
Then why do Google (and others) hire specifically for FE and BE roles?
- pluto9 7y ago
  I have no opinion on the issue being discussed, but the fact that Google does things a particular way is not evidence that that way is correct. It is entirely possible that Google would be better off hiring full-stack developers.

TeMPOraL 7y ago

> As an attempt at an example, if you went to college and got an English minor and a CompSci minor you'd be capable in both areas but you would likely not be as knowledgeable as an English major nor a CompSci major within the respective domain. I don't think this analogy works, because CompSci and English are pretty unrelated to each other as fields, whereas frontend and backend by definition work together to create a product. That makes a person experienced in both worth more when working on either, because they're more likely to have in mind the entire system when they do design decisions pertaining to their side of the network.

knightofmars 7y ago
I did say it was an attempt. :)

woutr_be 7y ago

I need to disagree with you here, I consider myself full stack, but if you were to ask, FE would be my deep experience. And for me this is perfect, I have no problems with any FE work, and the same goes for BE work. Sure, we have BE engineers with very deep experience, but I've never found myself in a position where I couldn't keep up with them. I acknowledge a lack some knowledge in BE, especially when it comes to deeper CompSci domains, but it has never held me back. But in general, I think this is just a different mindset, I love being able to be independent, and complete a stories from FE to BE. I used to be in a position where I could only do FE work, and it really scared me. I had no clue where critical data was coming from, if something went wrong, I couldn't debug our APIs, I was in the dark constantly. Now if something goes wrong, I can switch over to our backend, debug, write extra test cases to cover the bug and push code. I also understand what BE engineers are talking about, and when designing a new feature, it's much easier to come up with new APIs.

knightofmars 7y ago
Knowledge about how the other side of the fence works doesn't suddenly make a full-stack engineer. I'm sure if we actually came up with a ratio (80/20 vs 50/50) of work it would provide a clearer understanding about when a person is FE, BE, or FE/BE. Alternatively, we could look at the type of work the individual is doing. For example, in your role are you going to be an architect doing solutions for the back-end?
- woutr_be 7y ago
  It’s not just knowledge, I can actually do all the work, and yes, I could design solutions. It’s just that my real deep knowledge would be FE. But I consider myself full stack because I can do both sides without a problem. In my team I’m just the only FE, so naturally most of that work falls on me. There are months where I only did BE stories.

syndacks 7y ago

I double majored in English and Economics and consider myself an amazing full stack developer.

knightofmars 7y ago
"But in practice, and accounting for exceptions..."