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Sometimes people ask me what I work on, I answer, "compilers", and they respond with "oh, so back end?". Which I guess is technically true but not really. I get

Sometimes people ask me what I work on, I answer, "compilers", and they respond with "oh, so back end?". Which I guess is technically true but not really. I get that most development these days is for web facing applications but it's mildly amusing how people forget that plenty of code is written outside the front-end/back-end dichotomy.

jraph 5y ago
It's funny because backend and frontend also have meanings in compilers. You could answer "No, frontend, obviously" and be accurate.
- heisenbit 5y ago
  Let‘s keep this complicated please. Most code on back and frontend are written in something starting with ‚Java‘ which is compiled to an intermediate representation which is interpreted and on demand compiled to machine code which is interpreted and executed as micro-code.
verrp 5y ago
I think of your area (compilers) not as outside the front-end/back-end dichotomy, but (to your point) outside the the world of web-apps, etc. The front-end/back-end lens can be applied to compilers -- just the "front-end" (invocation options, error/status messages, maybe IDE integrations) is very thin, compared to the "back-end" (i.e., everything else).
- jhgb 5y ago
  > "front-end" (invocation options, error/status messages, maybe IDE integrations) is very thin I thought the front end of a compiler was the parser and the associated code analysis steps (such as type checking), not "error messages".
nradclif 5y ago
Came here to say this. It drives me nuts when people unconsciously identify all software engineering with web application design.