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I think I'm of a similar mindset. I started my career working on low-level things in C, and later moved towards being a sysadmin - largely as a result of worki

I think I'm of a similar mindset. I started my career working on low-level things in C, and later moved towards being a sysadmin - largely as a result of working for a company who's sysadmin quit with zero notice. These days I'm a devops-engineer, whatever that means, and I think my background of low-level understanding/coding has been very helpful. Developers these days who can do amazing front-end things tend not to understand how computers work, how servers work, and how to debug problems under pressure. I'm sure they're entirely capable of doing the obvious/basic things, but their experience doesn't often qualify themselves to work from the bare metal upwards.

axaxs 6y ago
Right, similar experience here, and that's exactly what I mean. For example, I don't think a typical fullstack dev would know what it means to see a 'too many open files', how to debug, or how to fix. Hell, most don't understand the difference between a 'connection refused' and a 'unknown host.' In fairness, they don't have to. I started as a full Linux/C nerd who thought I'd conquer the world, and watched as tools like Docker attempt to make it irrelevant. I say attempt because I find it typically a huge waste of resources as an abstraction, but people love it, so I lost. I don't feel defeated or obsolete, just the nature of an ever evolving curriculum I guess.
christiansakai 6y ago
There are plenty of front end engineers that understand how computer works, how server works, and how to debug under pressure. It's good enough to debug performance and compilation problems.
- stevekemp 6y ago
  They exist, definitely. But I think there are far more front-end developers who know (and are amazing at) CSS, Javascript, react, and all that stuff - and have no ability to diagnose, or resolve server-side problems (be they overheating CPUs, bad RAM, flaky DNS, or other problems).

axaxs 6y ago

Right, similar experience here, and that's exactly what I mean. For example, I don't think a typical fullstack dev would know what it means to see a 'too many open files', how to debug, or how to fix. Hell, most don't understand the difference between a 'connection refused' and a 'unknown host.' In fairness, they don't have to. I started as a full Linux/C nerd who thought I'd conquer the world, and watched as tools like Docker attempt to make it irrelevant. I say attempt because I find it typically a huge waste of resources as an abstraction, but people love it, so I lost. I don't feel defeated or obsolete, just the nature of an ever evolving curriculum I guess.

christiansakai 6y ago

There are plenty of front end engineers that understand how computer works, how server works, and how to debug under pressure. It's good enough to debug performance and compilation problems.

stevekemp 6y ago
They exist, definitely. But I think there are far more front-end developers who know (and are amazing at) CSS, Javascript, react, and all that stuff - and have no ability to diagnose, or resolve server-side problems (be they overheating CPUs, bad RAM, flaky DNS, or other problems).