My preference is database plus backend (or db as back-end, or db plus middleware as glue). The reason is that the sorts of problems that arise there are more i

My preference is database plus backend (or db as back-end, or db plus middleware as glue). The reason is that the sorts of problems that arise there are more interesting and challenging, while front-end programming has problems of a different sort (the problems are less challenging but they are moving targets).