6 ms·

The Hubris of Front-End Developers

26 points by allenc 14y ago

fghh45sdfhr3 14y ago
I could not continue reading after the author started apologizing for the computer-science-heavy interview. Simply put, if computer science heavy questions bother you, you are not an A player.
- Zimahl 14y ago
  Simply put, if computer science heavy questions bother you, you are not an A player. And herein lies the problem - the hubris of a SW Dev. So often the more artistic-leaning FE Dev is interviewed by the more pragmatic-leaning SW Dev. The software dev starts asking questions about recursion and collections and then labels the FE as a terrible developer. What you have to understand is that FE Devs don't care about that stuff. They aren't trained in it, they aren't interested in it. They have a completely different domain knowledge than the SW Dev and that's fine. It's not worse, it's just different. It doesn't make them a non-'A player'. They could very well be an A player in their particular domain. Watching a good FE Dev sling HTML/CSS/JS is a thing of beauty. It's not as easy as a lot of SW Devs think it is.
  - fghh45sdfhr3 14y ago
    It's not worse, it's just different. Many SW Devs are great at creative front end work. Many FE Devs used to be amazing back end Devs. Many Devs don't care what end or language they work in. Those are A players. If you've just never worked with a single particular technology, that's fine. If on the other hand you have never touched a lot of technologies.... probably not an A player. If you don't know anything about recursion, you are definitely not an A player. Frankly, I find saying that FE Devs shouldn't care about recursion insulting to FE Devs. Watching a good FE Dev sling HTML/CSS/JS is a thing of beauty. It's not as easy as a lot of SW Devs think it is. If they mess up fundamental computer science concepts while slinging JS around, it's gong to be painful rather than beautiful to watch. And I make no claim it is easy. JS in particular is lovely programing language liked by many SW Devs.
    - Zimahl 14y ago
      You're saying that just because someone doesn't have a specific set of domain knowledge they can't be an 'A player' in the domain they do have knowledge in. This simply isn't true. Using an analogy, even though Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan play golf, Michael Jordan can't be an 'A player' in basketball even though that's his domain, not golf. Are backend developers that have only a cursory domain knowledge of the front end not 'A players'?
      - xaa 14y ago
        A better analogy might be two different positions in basketball: shooting guard and center. To some degree, the two positions specialize: SG doesn't need to block shots (let's say), while the center does. However, everyone needs to dribble. A simple CS concept like recursion is analogous to dribbling. If you can't dribble, you're not playing basketball. If you don't know what recursion is, you're not a professional. Period.
      - fghh45sdfhr3 14y ago
        Are backend developers that have only a cursory domain knowledge of the front end not 'A players'? I would say that if have no interest in what is literally half of the internet, it does not matter how good you are at the back end, you are not an A player. And computer science isn't just another domain. We're not talking php vs python here. This is about the fundamental nature of the work you do. Yes, even as a JS slinger, you still have the exact same computing fundamentals to deal with. It's not like basketball and golf, it's like basic athleticism. No you can't be an A basketball player if you don't have a minimum of athleticism. And the same is true for almost all sports. The fundamentals of computer science are to developers like cardio is to athletes.
        Zimahl 14y ago
        I would say that if have no interest in what is literally half of the internet, it does not matter how good you are at the back end, you are not an A player. There are very few people who could have enough knowledge of all the domains of CS to be an 'A player' in your definition. This is about the fundamental nature of the work you do. Yes, even as a JS slinger, you still have the exact same computing fundamentals to deal with. Not sure if you are literally targeting me, but I am a backend developer who does a fair share of UI. I frankly despise JS but live with it nonetheless.
j_baker 14y ago
I wish this post had a little bit less dramatic headline. It makes this post sound much more inflammatory than it actually is.
- allenc 14y ago
  Yea, my fault; I had written something more inflammatory, but after a bunch of edits I had moderated my tone once I realized I was just ranting against bad FE candidates I had interviewed.
dredmorbius 14y ago
In the "irony is ironic" department, we have a site with a low-contrast text/background combination. Readability Redux FTFW. Which is more about Web design than FE, but still.
ehosca 14y ago
what was the point of this article? Where's the hubris? Bunch of incoherent sentences strung together meandering around a non existent point that is never made.
ajacksified 14y ago
The negative comments about this post by others are interesting; perhaps it's because I'm also a FE Engineer, but I thought much of what you said was spot-on. I've managed to specialize in FE only because I can also do back-end work; I have a hard time hiring other FEs because so many only know jQuery, and a spot of html and css, and I simply don't have room on my small engineering team unless they can supplement more or are very fast learners. To be an effective FE, you need to understand the whole stack - not just how to install a jQuery plugin, but also CSS, Javascript the language, html, where these technologies are going (html5, ecmascript 6), what the back end stack looks like, how data gets from the database to the browser, how the browser rendering engine works, pragmatic optimizations, functional and OO concepts, version control, browser quirks, the TCP stack, and deployment. No, you don't have to specialize in these things, but you need to be familiar or willing to get familiar. And you're right, most companies don't understand what FE engineers need or what they should be.
- Zimahl 14y ago
  To be an effective FE, you need to understand the whole stack I completely disagree. There are a lot of organizations that completely abstract the front end from the rest of the stack and have only UI developers work on a very focused piece. It doesn't help a UI developer to know the DB schema or the middle tier components. They need to know where they can get the data they need and where to send updates. That's about it. It can be helpful if they know business flow (not necessarily logic).
  - ajacksified 14y ago
    They don't need to have the schema memorized, but they do need to know the path the data takes from the database to the front-end to appropriately optimize how the front end receives and displays the data; for example, to properly implement Backbone, you want a RESTful API. Is this available (or achievable if not)? You have to know your capabilities in order to appropriately choose a pattern or framework. You're involved- or should be involved- in coordinating with back-end developers on the interface from the front-end and the back end. The implementation of that interface depends on the structure of the underlying system; different databases, such as document-based vs relational, can have subtle differences in how your interfaces are implemented and effect the flexibility of said interfaces.
pdenya 14y ago
HTML/CSS is a small piece of a stack that is fairly easy to pick up. There are hardly ever reasons to hire someone who is FE only (at small companies) and I often find that people who are FE only don't have the kind foundation that would allow them to venture into complicated JS code. The author seems to be implying that SEs given front end responsibilities will struggle with them but that's only true in the way that they struggle with anything else new (the struggle is short lived because we're talking about markup with quirks). Also, OP, if you read this, your footnotes link to the original text but it's covered by your huge fixed header.
- allenc 14y ago
  Ah, thanks - I guess I should just get rid of the fixed header... But to your first point, I don't think it's just learning HTML and CSS syntax. For example, I've never seen a SE break out XScope and measure the exact pixels between two elements, obsess about the opacity of a drop shadow, or spend a few hours to tweak the bezier curve of an animation. It's like saying that SEs will just struggle with design initially.

26 points by allenc 14y ago

I could not continue reading after the author started apologizing for the computer-science-heavy interview. Simply put, if computer science heavy questions bother you, you are not an A player.

Zimahl 14y ago
Simply put, if computer science heavy questions bother you, you are not an A player. And herein lies the problem - the hubris of a SW Dev. So often the more artistic-leaning FE Dev is interviewed by the more pragmatic-leaning SW Dev. The software dev starts asking questions about recursion and collections and then labels the FE as a terrible developer. What you have to understand is that FE Devs don't care about that stuff. They aren't trained in it, they aren't interested in it. They have a completely different domain knowledge than the SW Dev and that's fine. It's not worse, it's just different. It doesn't make them a non-'A player'. They could very well be an A player in their particular domain. Watching a good FE Dev sling HTML/CSS/JS is a thing of beauty. It's not as easy as a lot of SW Devs think it is.
- fghh45sdfhr3 14y ago
  It's not worse, it's just different. Many SW Devs are great at creative front end work. Many FE Devs used to be amazing back end Devs. Many Devs don't care what end or language they work in. Those are A players. If you've just never worked with a single particular technology, that's fine. If on the other hand you have never touched a lot of technologies.... probably not an A player. If you don't know anything about recursion, you are definitely not an A player. Frankly, I find saying that FE Devs shouldn't care about recursion insulting to FE Devs. Watching a good FE Dev sling HTML/CSS/JS is a thing of beauty. It's not as easy as a lot of SW Devs think it is. If they mess up fundamental computer science concepts while slinging JS around, it's gong to be painful rather than beautiful to watch. And I make no claim it is easy. JS in particular is lovely programing language liked by many SW Devs.
  - Zimahl 14y ago
    You're saying that just because someone doesn't have a specific set of domain knowledge they can't be an 'A player' in the domain they do have knowledge in. This simply isn't true. Using an analogy, even though Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan play golf, Michael Jordan can't be an 'A player' in basketball even though that's his domain, not golf. Are backend developers that have only a cursory domain knowledge of the front end not 'A players'?
    - xaa 14y ago
      A better analogy might be two different positions in basketball: shooting guard and center. To some degree, the two positions specialize: SG doesn't need to block shots (let's say), while the center does. However, everyone needs to dribble. A simple CS concept like recursion is analogous to dribbling. If you can't dribble, you're not playing basketball. If you don't know what recursion is, you're not a professional. Period.
    - fghh45sdfhr3 14y ago
      Are backend developers that have only a cursory domain knowledge of the front end not 'A players'? I would say that if have no interest in what is literally half of the internet, it does not matter how good you are at the back end, you are not an A player. And computer science isn't just another domain. We're not talking php vs python here. This is about the fundamental nature of the work you do. Yes, even as a JS slinger, you still have the exact same computing fundamentals to deal with. It's not like basketball and golf, it's like basic athleticism. No you can't be an A basketball player if you don't have a minimum of athleticism. And the same is true for almost all sports. The fundamentals of computer science are to developers like cardio is to athletes.
      - Zimahl 14y ago
        I would say that if have no interest in what is literally half of the internet, it does not matter how good you are at the back end, you are not an A player. There are very few people who could have enough knowledge of all the domains of CS to be an 'A player' in your definition. This is about the fundamental nature of the work you do. Yes, even as a JS slinger, you still have the exact same computing fundamentals to deal with. Not sure if you are literally targeting me, but I am a backend developer who does a fair share of UI. I frankly despise JS but live with it nonetheless.

j_baker 14y ago

I wish this post had a little bit less dramatic headline. It makes this post sound much more inflammatory than it actually is.

allenc 14y ago
Yea, my fault; I had written something more inflammatory, but after a bunch of edits I had moderated my tone once I realized I was just ranting against bad FE candidates I had interviewed.

dredmorbius 14y ago

In the "irony is ironic" department, we have a site with a low-contrast text/background combination. Readability Redux FTFW. Which is more about Web design than FE, but still.

ehosca 14y ago

what was the point of this article? Where's the hubris? Bunch of incoherent sentences strung together meandering around a non existent point that is never made.

ajacksified 14y ago

The negative comments about this post by others are interesting; perhaps it's because I'm also a FE Engineer, but I thought much of what you said was spot-on. I've managed to specialize in FE only because I can also do back-end work; I have a hard time hiring other FEs because so many only know jQuery, and a spot of html and css, and I simply don't have room on my small engineering team unless they can supplement more or are very fast learners. To be an effective FE, you need to understand the whole stack - not just how to install a jQuery plugin, but also CSS, Javascript the language, html, where these technologies are going (html5, ecmascript 6), what the back end stack looks like, how data gets from the database to the browser, how the browser rendering engine works, pragmatic optimizations, functional and OO concepts, version control, browser quirks, the TCP stack, and deployment. No, you don't have to specialize in these things, but you need to be familiar or willing to get familiar. And you're right, most companies don't understand what FE engineers need or what they should be.

Zimahl 14y ago
To be an effective FE, you need to understand the whole stack I completely disagree. There are a lot of organizations that completely abstract the front end from the rest of the stack and have only UI developers work on a very focused piece. It doesn't help a UI developer to know the DB schema or the middle tier components. They need to know where they can get the data they need and where to send updates. That's about it. It can be helpful if they know business flow (not necessarily logic).
- ajacksified 14y ago
  They don't need to have the schema memorized, but they do need to know the path the data takes from the database to the front-end to appropriately optimize how the front end receives and displays the data; for example, to properly implement Backbone, you want a RESTful API. Is this available (or achievable if not)? You have to know your capabilities in order to appropriately choose a pattern or framework. You're involved- or should be involved- in coordinating with back-end developers on the interface from the front-end and the back end. The implementation of that interface depends on the structure of the underlying system; different databases, such as document-based vs relational, can have subtle differences in how your interfaces are implemented and effect the flexibility of said interfaces.

pdenya 14y ago

HTML/CSS is a small piece of a stack that is fairly easy to pick up. There are hardly ever reasons to hire someone who is FE only (at small companies) and I often find that people who are FE only don't have the kind foundation that would allow them to venture into complicated JS code. The author seems to be implying that SEs given front end responsibilities will struggle with them but that's only true in the way that they struggle with anything else new (the struggle is short lived because we're talking about markup with quirks). Also, OP, if you read this, your footnotes link to the original text but it's covered by your huge fixed header.

allenc 14y ago
Ah, thanks - I guess I should just get rid of the fixed header... But to your first point, I don't think it's just learning HTML and CSS syntax. For example, I've never seen a SE break out XScope and measure the exact pixels between two elements, obsess about the opacity of a drop shadow, or spend a few hours to tweak the bezier curve of an animation. It's like saying that SEs will just struggle with design initially.