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Easier in some ways, harder in others. Easier: + You don't need to write a thousand edge case code to cover different devices + There's less "trial and error
by hnlmorg 5y ago
Easier in some ways, harder in others.
Easier:
+ You don't need to write a thousand edge case code to cover different devices
+ There's less "trial and error" trying to figure out what sequence of CSS properties is needed to adjust some of the simplest of designs
+ More choices of languages available (should Javascript / Typescript not float your boat)
+ More consistency in that you only need to worry about your backend language and maybe SQL (if you're not using an ORM -- which frankly developers shouldn't imo)
+ Easier to write unit tests
Harder:
- Lazy code becomes more than just an annoyance, it will have performance impacts on your servers thus directly costing your company more money
- You can no longer rely on other people to deal with security for you. Mistakes aren't just going to be rendering bugs
- You don't have something immediate that you demo if there isn't already a UI mocked up
- You need to rely more heavily on unit tests
And if your back end developers are also doubling as DevOps then your job will get exponentially harder still as you then have to manage infrastructure as well. But a lot of places will have dedicated infrastructure guys.
Personally I much prefer backend development to frontend development. I (personally) find it more predictable and easier to reason. However a lot of people prefer frontend development if just because you get to see instant results of your code
- smitty1e 5y agoBack End owns more of the infrastructure, including the admin, pipeline, and networking chores. But the UX seems the 20% of the system eating 80% of the time, yes.
- milkers 5y agoThat is the ratio thank you! From the 5+ years experience I have, BE tasks always consume less time than FE tasks. One of the reasons for it is that, BE works get commented by technical people and technical people easy to get along well and understand each other and the decisions. However FE works get commented by a larger audience either technical or non-technical. Each comment delays the acceptance of the work done. And mostly it is harder to persuade a non-tech person about the limitations of the current technology.
- shahbaby 5y agoTotally agree. This has also been my experience having recently transitioned from FE to BE. Even if FE is easier to demo, there's less appreciation for the underlying complexity.
- Buttons840 5y agoI was once doing good work at a dysfunctional company. We had a good application backend with a poor frontend. Another team, rivals, came in with a great frontend and barely enough backend to support it. They won so much support and mindshare with their prettier UI that our project was canceled, and they years working on backend features we had from the beginning. To most people, the UI is the application. https://blog.codinghorror.com/the-user-interface-is-the-application/ https://blog.codinghorror.com/the-user-interface-is-the-appl...
- 5350-uiop-1130 5y agothanks for the breakdown. > You can no longer rely on other people to deal with security for you. Mistakes aren't just going to be rendering bugs this is the one that concerns me most. i was thinking maybe php with wordpress to leverage my existing skills but even then is that really backend or maybe not.