5 ms·

UI Developers

80 points by zappan 13y ago

braum 13y ago
I like this, makes for a much better business card and resume line!
dutchbrit 13y ago
I hate titles, sure, it does look more fancy. Besides, you can have frontend only applications written in javascript. Would that make me just a 'UI Developer'? I can go on and on, but just stick with a title that explains your skills the best. I can't stick a label on myself. I dabble in a lot of fields. I don't disagree with all of your points however. People should just make up their own title that fit them best.
- zappan 13y ago
  I'm afraid you're missing it a bit - just making only javascript applications is the reason to make a different distinction - some people are better at doing MVC, and they do it in the browser now; while some people are great in making great looking UIs, but not really digging into application architecture. And, of course, there are people doing both, being full-stack devs, but still they're usually more efficient in some areas than the others - I am such an example, still I know UI devs that are way more efficient and know neat tricks on the UI, as well as some great UI libraries to do their work faster (and usually better, relying on the know-how built into the lib) because they specialize in that. Thanks for your comment regarding labeling, though... I agree that sometimes it's inappropriate, still sometimes it's useful to figure out the kind of work being done under such a label
  - k__ 13y ago
    I'm an UI-developer, but I still have to think about software architecture, because we have a multi-tier System. There is a data-gathering (tier-1) and -mutation (tier-2) backend and a HTTP-front-end to gather this data (tier-3). And then there is the GUI (tier-4), which is an application itself, with the HTTP-frontend as backend. The back-end developers work in tier-1/2 The front-end evelopers work in tier-3/4
zacharyvoase 13y ago
I tried calling myself an 'Application Developer' once before, and it lasted about 5 minutes, because I suddenly started receiving requests to build people's iOS/Android app ideas. I never called myself a back-end developer anyway; if people ask me what I do I just say 'I program computers—and yes, it really is that general'.
kapowaz 13y ago
No. “The border between the server and the client has faded” So why continue to use distinct job titles? I think ‘web developer’ suffices; the specific skills you can bring will vary from person to person, but you should be fighting against being pigeon-holed, not embracing it by voluntarily saying you belong in one category and not another.
- androtheos 13y ago
  I agree with you here. You almost have to be a generalist anymore but I would add that it's important to know where your strengths and weaknesses lie. For example I can build a passable UI, I know the rules for creating friendly user interfaces but I know it would be much better to have someone with strengths in design do it. They're attention to the details will always make my work look like what it is, a server side developer playing at being a UI developer.
t4nkd 13y ago
Yeah, I'm not really feeling the persuasion here. I really don't know many "frontend developers" or "backend developers" to begin with. I know plenty of people struggle writing maintainable, well structured applications or who don't grasp front end concepts/technology enough to really produce anything production worthy. Those people are still "my peers" first and I typically consider their title to be "software engineer" or possibly "web developer". The individuals lacking a grasp on front end technology probably need to learn just as well as an individual with great front end skills needs to learn the rest of the stack. We're so heavily coupled now, in terms of squeezing performance out of an application and the ability to iterate rapidly, that throwing a bunch of backend logic and/or API's over the wall to "UI Developers" is probably not only a waste of time, but detrimental to the process. Throwing code over a wall is usually what happens when two distinctly different types of engineers are in the same product and avoiding it is tricky. All this opinion of course is coming from someone who has managed to develop design, UI/UX, and a programming skill set and I'm probably pretty biased when it comes to pidgin holing people into a single role. Having said that, this proposal really smells like an easy way to "be lazy" out of a responsibility in the project. Dismissing a UI issue by surrendering, "But I'm the Application Developer, I don't really do UI" sounds like the more common scenario in the roles you're proposing. The reality is, if you want to keep working on web-oriented applications, you might need to grasp a bit of both, or at least some of each and a lot more experience in either direction(e.g. learning the full stack and then taking a deep interest in hardware performance WRT application profiling). Good luck with your ambition though, I'm sure if you can make it popular the industry won't care about how I feel .
- zappan 13y ago
  Thanks for your thoughts... Still, positions are usually labeled like that. Personally I'm a full-stack dev, but I'm far more efficient in the application architecture role than the UI stuff, although I'm capable of doing it all. The responsibility has less to do with titles, as a responsible developer can and will take several roles in the project if one's capable to do so...
- davedx 13y ago
  > We're so heavily coupled now I think if anything we're less tightly coupled than we used to be. So many projects now have a clearly defined backend API and a separate front-end project. The problem though is that these front-end projects that used to be HTML/CSS with some JavaScript are now becoming almost full-stack applications themselves, with all the nuts and bolts you'd associate with backend projects (routing, controllers, application logic, complicated event handling) now also in the frontend. In terms of how we describe roles in software, as long as it's from a genuine specific need (e.g. "frontend JavaScript developer") and not just some mix of buzzwords, I don't really see the problem.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
ebbv 13y ago
An application is not what most people consider an application without its UI.
- craigching 13y ago
  My comment was going to be "Disagree, the UI is part of the application. Next?" but since you said it first, I'll piggyback on your comment ;) The post talks about "application logic" as being the backend, but we have plenty of "application logic" in our rich web UIs, so I just don't see it. EDIT: Changed "rich UIs" to "rich web UIs" to clarify that I actually am talking about the article's domain. Not that the comment isn't relevant in other domains too, though.
susi22 13y ago
I propose: Stop over thinking things
jh3 13y ago
How about Software Developer?
- rufeeooo 13y ago
  And the software developers work on everything, not just front end or back end.
girvo 13y ago
Eh. I just say "developer". I don't just work on back-end stuff; I don't just work on web stuff either. Nowadays you end up being "full-stack" (or "jack-of-all-trades-master-of-one-facet") for the most part, at least here in Brisbane.
- hispanic 13y ago
  Likewise, although I prefer "software developer", since "developer" connotes land and real estate development in many people's minds.
  - girvo 13y ago
    Yeah, I like and agree with that. Doesn't help that my parents are real estate and commercial developers :P
michaelochurch 13y ago
Zed Shaw already solved this problem: http://programming-motherfucker.com http://programming-motherfucker.com . What made programming great (before the Douchebag Invasion came in and we were divided into these stupid warring camps) is now what makes "data science" attractive: the generalist flair and the ability to pick your projects and move around the economy by your own sail. By the way, I personally hate the term "software engineer", at least as commonly used. It sounds Corporate and I feel like I need a shower after I say it. Genuine software engineering (like, what people who build rockets do, where attention to code quality is critical and people actually consider proving code) is actually very important, but you're only an engineer if you have professional autonomy. If you answer to managers and build CRUD apps to support their careers rather than your own, then you're not a professional. Right now, most of us live under a worst-of-both-worlds regime where it's not clear whether we're genuine professionals, entre- or "intra"preneurs, or glorified labor. Of course, this allows management to frame-change freely among all of the possibilities depending on the specific negotiation, leaving us with the bottom of each possibility.
- tocomment 13y ago
  As an aside about CRUD apps. I've been kicking around the idea of building and selling a universal CRUD app. Do you think there would be a market for that? How would I sell it?
  - woah 13y ago
    Hhhhhmmmm... I would develop it in an interesting language from Japan...
    - tocomment 13y ago
      Sorry, I don't follow.
      - stcredzero 13y ago
        RoR
roncohen 13y ago
UI is an extremely important part of applications. In that sense, frontend developers are building the application as much as backenders. Also, UI seems to exclude UX, which is typically also something frontend developers do.
- akacs 13y ago
  I agree with you. It's nonsense to separate UI from application development these days. What comes first is "Web App Developer", "Android Native App Developer", and so on.
jimktrains2 13y ago
I don't think that "UI developer" is actually all of what the front end people do. There is often a good bit of application code going on that they take care of.
qntmfred 13y ago
while we're renaming things, let's stop talking about html/css/js and just call it webstack
atirip 13y ago
Nope. OP proposal corresponds with nothing i have done last 3 years. I'm and was a front-end developer and i code everything in browser - UI, logic, architecture, everything to the last drop. The other's in team are back-end developers and they code everything at the server, whatever the server then outputs, also to the last drop. There was and is a very clear line between of us and the titles explain exaclty the roles we play in team.
calinet6 13y ago
Eh, just be both. Problem solved.
dr3daemon 13y ago
My own opinion - If you can't write code for the frontend OR the backend then it's not the frontend / backend part that is a problem with your title, it's the developer bit.... And that's not meant to be a criticism of anyone - if you are a good programmer you _can_ write frontend OR backend code in any language - maybe you just haven't done it yet. So why is it part of your job title? At best it should be in the prior experience section of your CV. Code is code. At the end of the day it's all 1s and 0s. Don't limit yourself.
mifchip 13y ago
New kind of renaming servers in server room architecture to cloud :)
greghinch 13y ago
I personally would prefer to see this divide: - Product developer - implements the functionality, from the database to the functional UI. Lives in Ruby/Python/PHP/etc. AND Javascript - UI designer - creates and implements visual designs. Lives in Photoshop and HTML/CSS - Dev Ops - maintains the infrastructure, optimizes resources, manages deployment. Lives on the command line Of course, all these rolls have crossover. And hopefully that's a good thing, your team shouldn't be segregated by knowledge barriers. A big problem I see is that "front-end" is right now defined as "HTML/CSS/JS". Being good at the first two is a completely separate skill from being able to write and design software in a programming language like JS. I see much better results from designers who can deliver built templates than I do from those who can just deliver photoshop files
- jcampbell1 13y ago
  > Being good at the first two is a completely separate skill from being able to write and design software in a programming language like JS. If find to write good JS view code, you need to be able to write html/css yourself. If you are implementing something like auto-suggest, a designer's html isn't likely to be much help. To write the view properly, you need to know how to position the suggest box relative to the input or cursor without interference from the rest of the DOM. I don't think you can claim to be a good front end JS developer, and suck at HTML/CSS. I constantly find situations like: "how am I going to make this design work if the user name is 20 characters long?... Okay I'll float this, right text align this, overflow hide this, then a long-title plus a long username will automatically push the content down a bit". It is clearly a programming puzzle that needs to get solved by someone other than a designer.
  - greghinch 13y ago
    Yes, as I mentioned, there should be crossover, and everyone should know a something of the other side where that happens. So the Product dev should be able to certainly write HTML/CSS and understand how they work, but the Designer would be typically better at building a full template with optimized CSS. Put another way, good designers know their mediums, which should includes HTML and CSS, and doesn't stop at Photoshop.
joshuacc 13y ago
My employer uses the term "UI Developer" for front end roles, and I've seen that become increasingly common. But I think there are a different set of expectations that come with that title than "Front End Developer." The most prominent being greater facility with JavaScript.
darren0 13y ago
I feel so many articles on hn have a myopic view of software architecture. You see this with "full stack" engineer job postings. The desired skills are usually something like RoR, ember, and backbone. I'm sorry, but from my perspective, that is all frontend development. This article refers to backend developers as "sending only a HTML document as a result to the browser." Again, in my world, if your sending HTML, mostl likely that is frontend. Backend has nothing to do with HTML or any presentation logic. Backend is services. I know this is a rather unfair judgement but so many articles seem to indicate RoR+JS/CSS+DB is the "full" picture of software architecture. But really, that's frontend. There is a whole beautiful world of backend distributed services missing.
Zigurd 13y ago
In some cases all the intelligence is behind the RESTful interface, and, so, that's what you could call "the app." In other cases, like synthesizing traffic and bus location data to predict when the bus will arrive, the "app" can be in the device, especially when there is no Web interface presenting the same synthesis. Games can be entirely in an endpoint device, as can any complex application that cannot depend on pervasive connectivity. Needs more thought.
figital 13y ago
Learn them both ... otherwise you're either tasting electrons with C or you're a graphic designer. {{ http://i.imgur.com/pG3q7.jpg http://i.imgur.com/pG3q7.jpg }}
wambotron 13y ago
I do a good deal of both, can I be an Appliui Develotion?
liquidise 13y ago
With the increasing popularity of structured front-end libraries (backbone, meteor, etc) this seems completely out of place?
rbosinger 13y ago
I'm down. I also hate saying "frontend" and "backend" too much. It sounds kind of dirty. "She's working hard on the frontend while I try to find these holes in the backend!". I always have to pause before using these terms to see if the sentence will be funny.
brandon_wirtz 13y ago
If only it were so simple. And if you think it is that's probably because you don't understand. Frontend often is WAY more than UI. When you are building a client/server application frontend can be far more than UI. Take Call Of Duty for an example. UI is not appropriate for all of the Client side development. Take Google Now as an example. While most the heavy lifting is on the server, the Frontend is also doing data gathering, and calls to the Database on the phone that stores contacts. So a lot of the frontend is not UI. For our TLDR Plugin for chrome we started out using Readability.JS and when that needed tweaks we ended up moving to server side readability. But before that, much of the Backend logic that we had been using for our search engine was being put in to the client ported from Python to JavaScript. That was not UI, but was very much frontend. I think the people who want to name Frontend developers UI Developers tend to be the people that think that Building HTML is development rather than Design and Implementation. True Frontend is about making appropriate decisions about which things live on Client and which live on server.
woah 13y ago
What about the terms "Markup Designer" and "Software Developer"? These would seem to fit the bill perfectly.
- tg3 13y ago
  What he describes in the article as a UI Developer is much more than markup, it frequently has javascript flavor for interaction with the user. Also, interfaces are designed in Markup for the time being only, not as a rule for eternity.

80 points by zappan 13y ago

braum 13y ago

I like this, makes for a much better business card and resume line!

I hate titles, sure, it does look more fancy. Besides, you can have frontend only applications written in javascript. Would that make me just a 'UI Developer'? I can go on and on, but just stick with a title that explains your skills the best. I can't stick a label on myself. I dabble in a lot of fields. I don't disagree with all of your points however. People should just make up their own title that fit them best.

zappan 13y ago
I'm afraid you're missing it a bit - just making only javascript applications is the reason to make a different distinction - some people are better at doing MVC, and they do it in the browser now; while some people are great in making great looking UIs, but not really digging into application architecture. And, of course, there are people doing both, being full-stack devs, but still they're usually more efficient in some areas than the others - I am such an example, still I know UI devs that are way more efficient and know neat tricks on the UI, as well as some great UI libraries to do their work faster (and usually better, relying on the know-how built into the lib) because they specialize in that. Thanks for your comment regarding labeling, though... I agree that sometimes it's inappropriate, still sometimes it's useful to figure out the kind of work being done under such a label
- k__ 13y ago
  I'm an UI-developer, but I still have to think about software architecture, because we have a multi-tier System. There is a data-gathering (tier-1) and -mutation (tier-2) backend and a HTTP-front-end to gather this data (tier-3). And then there is the GUI (tier-4), which is an application itself, with the HTTP-frontend as backend. The back-end developers work in tier-1/2 The front-end evelopers work in tier-3/4

zacharyvoase 13y ago

I tried calling myself an 'Application Developer' once before, and it lasted about 5 minutes, because I suddenly started receiving requests to build people's iOS/Android app ideas. I never called myself a back-end developer anyway; if people ask me what I do I just say 'I program computers—and yes, it really is that general'.

kapowaz 13y ago

No. “The border between the server and the client has faded” So why continue to use distinct job titles? I think ‘web developer’ suffices; the specific skills you can bring will vary from person to person, but you should be fighting against being pigeon-holed, not embracing it by voluntarily saying you belong in one category and not another.

androtheos 13y ago
I agree with you here. You almost have to be a generalist anymore but I would add that it's important to know where your strengths and weaknesses lie. For example I can build a passable UI, I know the rules for creating friendly user interfaces but I know it would be much better to have someone with strengths in design do it. They're attention to the details will always make my work look like what it is, a server side developer playing at being a UI developer.

t4nkd 13y ago

Yeah, I'm not really feeling the persuasion here. I really don't know many "frontend developers" or "backend developers" to begin with. I know plenty of people struggle writing maintainable, well structured applications or who don't grasp front end concepts/technology enough to really produce anything production worthy. Those people are still "my peers" first and I typically consider their title to be "software engineer" or possibly "web developer". The individuals lacking a grasp on front end technology probably need to learn just as well as an individual with great front end skills needs to learn the rest of the stack. We're so heavily coupled now, in terms of squeezing performance out of an application and the ability to iterate rapidly, that throwing a bunch of backend logic and/or API's over the wall to "UI Developers" is probably not only a waste of time, but detrimental to the process. Throwing code over a wall is usually what happens when two distinctly different types of engineers are in the same product and avoiding it is tricky. All this opinion of course is coming from someone who has managed to develop design, UI/UX, and a programming skill set and I'm probably pretty biased when it comes to pidgin holing people into a single role. Having said that, this proposal really smells like an easy way to "be lazy" out of a responsibility in the project. Dismissing a UI issue by surrendering, "But I'm the Application Developer, I don't really do UI" sounds like the more common scenario in the roles you're proposing. The reality is, if you want to keep working on web-oriented applications, you might need to grasp a bit of both, or at least some of each and a lot more experience in either direction(e.g. learning the full stack and then taking a deep interest in hardware performance WRT application profiling). Good luck with your ambition though, I'm sure if you can make it popular the industry won't care about how I feel .

zappan 13y ago
Thanks for your thoughts... Still, positions are usually labeled like that. Personally I'm a full-stack dev, but I'm far more efficient in the application architecture role than the UI stuff, although I'm capable of doing it all. The responsibility has less to do with titles, as a responsible developer can and will take several roles in the project if one's capable to do so...
davedx 13y ago
> We're so heavily coupled now I think if anything we're less tightly coupled than we used to be. So many projects now have a clearly defined backend API and a separate front-end project. The problem though is that these front-end projects that used to be HTML/CSS with some JavaScript are now becoming almost full-stack applications themselves, with all the nuts and bolts you'd associate with backend projects (routing, controllers, application logic, complicated event handling) now also in the frontend. In terms of how we describe roles in software, as long as it's from a genuine specific need (e.g. "frontend JavaScript developer") and not just some mix of buzzwords, I don't really see the problem.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

ebbv 13y ago

An application is not what most people consider an application without its UI.

craigching 13y ago
My comment was going to be "Disagree, the UI is part of the application. Next?" but since you said it first, I'll piggyback on your comment ;) The post talks about "application logic" as being the backend, but we have plenty of "application logic" in our rich web UIs, so I just don't see it. EDIT: Changed "rich UIs" to "rich web UIs" to clarify that I actually am talking about the article's domain. Not that the comment isn't relevant in other domains too, though.

susi22 13y ago

I propose: Stop over thinking things

jh3 13y ago

How about Software Developer?

rufeeooo 13y ago
And the software developers work on everything, not just front end or back end.

girvo 13y ago

Eh. I just say "developer". I don't just work on back-end stuff; I don't just work on web stuff either. Nowadays you end up being "full-stack" (or "jack-of-all-trades-master-of-one-facet") for the most part, at least here in Brisbane.

hispanic 13y ago
Likewise, although I prefer "software developer", since "developer" connotes land and real estate development in many people's minds.
- girvo 13y ago
  Yeah, I like and agree with that. Doesn't help that my parents are real estate and commercial developers :P

michaelochurch 13y ago

Zed Shaw already solved this problem: http://programming-motherfucker.com http://programming-motherfucker.com . What made programming great (before the Douchebag Invasion came in and we were divided into these stupid warring camps) is now what makes "data science" attractive: the generalist flair and the ability to pick your projects and move around the economy by your own sail. By the way, I personally hate the term "software engineer", at least as commonly used. It sounds Corporate and I feel like I need a shower after I say it. Genuine software engineering (like, what people who build rockets do, where attention to code quality is critical and people actually consider proving code) is actually very important, but you're only an engineer if you have professional autonomy. If you answer to managers and build CRUD apps to support their careers rather than your own, then you're not a professional. Right now, most of us live under a worst-of-both-worlds regime where it's not clear whether we're genuine professionals, entre- or "intra"preneurs, or glorified labor. Of course, this allows management to frame-change freely among all of the possibilities depending on the specific negotiation, leaving us with the bottom of each possibility.

tocomment 13y ago
As an aside about CRUD apps. I've been kicking around the idea of building and selling a universal CRUD app. Do you think there would be a market for that? How would I sell it?
- woah 13y ago
  Hhhhhmmmm... I would develop it in an interesting language from Japan...
  - tocomment 13y ago
    Sorry, I don't follow.
    - stcredzero 13y ago
      RoR

roncohen 13y ago

UI is an extremely important part of applications. In that sense, frontend developers are building the application as much as backenders. Also, UI seems to exclude UX, which is typically also something frontend developers do.

akacs 13y ago
I agree with you. It's nonsense to separate UI from application development these days. What comes first is "Web App Developer", "Android Native App Developer", and so on.

jimktrains2 13y ago

I don't think that "UI developer" is actually all of what the front end people do. There is often a good bit of application code going on that they take care of.

qntmfred 13y ago

while we're renaming things, let's stop talking about html/css/js and just call it webstack

atirip 13y ago

Nope. OP proposal corresponds with nothing i have done last 3 years. I'm and was a front-end developer and i code everything in browser - UI, logic, architecture, everything to the last drop. The other's in team are back-end developers and they code everything at the server, whatever the server then outputs, also to the last drop. There was and is a very clear line between of us and the titles explain exaclty the roles we play in team.

calinet6 13y ago

Eh, just be both. Problem solved.

dr3daemon 13y ago

My own opinion - If you can't write code for the frontend OR the backend then it's not the frontend / backend part that is a problem with your title, it's the developer bit.... And that's not meant to be a criticism of anyone - if you are a good programmer you _can_ write frontend OR backend code in any language - maybe you just haven't done it yet. So why is it part of your job title? At best it should be in the prior experience section of your CV. Code is code. At the end of the day it's all 1s and 0s. Don't limit yourself.

mifchip 13y ago

New kind of renaming servers in server room architecture to cloud :)

greghinch 13y ago

I personally would prefer to see this divide: - Product developer - implements the functionality, from the database to the functional UI. Lives in Ruby/Python/PHP/etc. AND Javascript - UI designer - creates and implements visual designs. Lives in Photoshop and HTML/CSS - Dev Ops - maintains the infrastructure, optimizes resources, manages deployment. Lives on the command line Of course, all these rolls have crossover. And hopefully that's a good thing, your team shouldn't be segregated by knowledge barriers. A big problem I see is that "front-end" is right now defined as "HTML/CSS/JS". Being good at the first two is a completely separate skill from being able to write and design software in a programming language like JS. I see much better results from designers who can deliver built templates than I do from those who can just deliver photoshop files

jcampbell1 13y ago
> Being good at the first two is a completely separate skill from being able to write and design software in a programming language like JS. If find to write good JS view code, you need to be able to write html/css yourself. If you are implementing something like auto-suggest, a designer's html isn't likely to be much help. To write the view properly, you need to know how to position the suggest box relative to the input or cursor without interference from the rest of the DOM. I don't think you can claim to be a good front end JS developer, and suck at HTML/CSS. I constantly find situations like: "how am I going to make this design work if the user name is 20 characters long?... Okay I'll float this, right text align this, overflow hide this, then a long-title plus a long username will automatically push the content down a bit". It is clearly a programming puzzle that needs to get solved by someone other than a designer.
- greghinch 13y ago
  Yes, as I mentioned, there should be crossover, and everyone should know a something of the other side where that happens. So the Product dev should be able to certainly write HTML/CSS and understand how they work, but the Designer would be typically better at building a full template with optimized CSS. Put another way, good designers know their mediums, which should includes HTML and CSS, and doesn't stop at Photoshop.

joshuacc 13y ago

My employer uses the term "UI Developer" for front end roles, and I've seen that become increasingly common. But I think there are a different set of expectations that come with that title than "Front End Developer." The most prominent being greater facility with JavaScript.

darren0 13y ago

I feel so many articles on hn have a myopic view of software architecture. You see this with "full stack" engineer job postings. The desired skills are usually something like RoR, ember, and backbone. I'm sorry, but from my perspective, that is all frontend development. This article refers to backend developers as "sending only a HTML document as a result to the browser." Again, in my world, if your sending HTML, mostl likely that is frontend. Backend has nothing to do with HTML or any presentation logic. Backend is services. I know this is a rather unfair judgement but so many articles seem to indicate RoR+JS/CSS+DB is the "full" picture of software architecture. But really, that's frontend. There is a whole beautiful world of backend distributed services missing.

Zigurd 13y ago

In some cases all the intelligence is behind the RESTful interface, and, so, that's what you could call "the app." In other cases, like synthesizing traffic and bus location data to predict when the bus will arrive, the "app" can be in the device, especially when there is no Web interface presenting the same synthesis. Games can be entirely in an endpoint device, as can any complex application that cannot depend on pervasive connectivity. Needs more thought.

figital 13y ago

Learn them both ... otherwise you're either tasting electrons with C or you're a graphic designer. {{ http://i.imgur.com/pG3q7.jpg http://i.imgur.com/pG3q7.jpg }}

wambotron 13y ago

I do a good deal of both, can I be an Appliui Develotion?

liquidise 13y ago

With the increasing popularity of structured front-end libraries (backbone, meteor, etc) this seems completely out of place?

rbosinger 13y ago

I'm down. I also hate saying "frontend" and "backend" too much. It sounds kind of dirty. "She's working hard on the frontend while I try to find these holes in the backend!". I always have to pause before using these terms to see if the sentence will be funny.

brandon_wirtz 13y ago

If only it were so simple. And if you think it is that's probably because you don't understand. Frontend often is WAY more than UI. When you are building a client/server application frontend can be far more than UI. Take Call Of Duty for an example. UI is not appropriate for all of the Client side development. Take Google Now as an example. While most the heavy lifting is on the server, the Frontend is also doing data gathering, and calls to the Database on the phone that stores contacts. So a lot of the frontend is not UI. For our TLDR Plugin for chrome we started out using Readability.JS and when that needed tweaks we ended up moving to server side readability. But before that, much of the Backend logic that we had been using for our search engine was being put in to the client ported from Python to JavaScript. That was not UI, but was very much frontend. I think the people who want to name Frontend developers UI Developers tend to be the people that think that Building HTML is development rather than Design and Implementation. True Frontend is about making appropriate decisions about which things live on Client and which live on server.

woah 13y ago

What about the terms "Markup Designer" and "Software Developer"? These would seem to fit the bill perfectly.

tg3 13y ago
What he describes in the article as a UI Developer is much more than markup, it frequently has javascript flavor for interaction with the user. Also, interfaces are designed in Markup for the time being only, not as a rule for eternity.