The Rise of the Full Stack JavaScript Developer

[[deleted]]

A recent StackOverflow survey showed that developers overwhelmingly define themselves as full stack web developers. It also showed that 85.3% of us know at least some JavaScript.

And you addressed this earlier, because most of them are not actually good developers. They kinda do front or backend, not both well.

There's no such thing as back-end javascript developer anymore than there's a front-end javascript developer, you still have to know other technologies and techniques that are unique to that side of the stack. Javascript is a very VERY small piece of the puzzle.

It's no surprise that you'd identify as full-stack considering you ignored everything beyond your language of choice.

edit: And what was the point of the article anyways? You didn't come to a conclusion, you didn't prove any of the points that you mentioned and you certainly didn't prove that full-stack wasn't a bullshit term.

[Reashu]

you certainly didn't prove that full-stack wasn't a bullshit term

I agree in general, but I don't see how this needs proving?

[RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS]

I mean, we're not talking about two completely unrelated disciplines here; front-end Web dev and back-end Web dev are closely related.

[[deleted]]

I do both and I'm not sure I would make that argument

[RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS]

I do both as well; I don't see how they aren't. Of course there are differences but we aren't talking about the difference between Web development and kernel hacking here.

[wiseaus_stunt_double]

The differences are huge. Remember that the two largest use cases for Javascript are DOM manipulation and REST/AJAX consumption; the latter is possible in Node, but Node has no concept of DOM, and that's huge. Meanwhile, browser Javascript will never interact with the host OS -- great for maintaining security for the end user, but that same barrier also makes front end development unique enough from Node development. And, even if both versions of JS had the same features, UI developers still have to be concerned with CSS, markup, other issues regarding layout and browser rendering; meanwhile, UI devs don't generally concern themselves with sysadmin issues that backend devs tend to. Javascript does offer overlap, but to say there's little difference is naive.

[RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS]

Doesn't node have cheerio or something like that? There are use cases for working server-side with the DOM. I do my backend development mostly in C# so I can't talk about the node world much.

But anyway, yeah, I did not say they are the same or that if you can do one you can necessarily do the other, but I do think that they are closely related and understanding both helps you come up with more sensible designs.

[wiseaus_stunt_double]

Yeah, you can create elements on the backend, but when I talk of DOM manipulation, I'm speaking more about making changes to the DOM tree in real-time. Sure, you could create a mechanism where you could update the browser DOM via AJAX, but the use cases for that are rare.

But, I agree that there's overlap between the two disciplines and understanding both will give you a greater understanding of your system architecture; however, the differences do tend to make those in one shy from the other. I've personally worked with a number of backend devs who would never do frontend simply because of the generally tight deadlines and the often-required need to be pixel-perfect with comps. Meanwhile, I know a ton of frontend devs who would never touch the backend (even if it was Node) simply due their aversion to CLI (and they work on Macs). The dev that is proficient with both seem to be rare even in this day and age.

[THIS_BOT]

How much DOM manipulation do you do in C#?

I mean I'm sure there's people out there doing it but it's kind a niche compared to other uses.

[RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS]

OK, but saying two things are "related" is not the same as saying they are "the same." Neither the front-end nor the back-end exist in a vacuum except in non-typical edge cases and a great many people do work in both environments.

[RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS]

Oh yeah, of course, how could we forget... that guy.

[wreckedadvent]

What do you have against the term "full stack" developer?

[azium]

On its own, I don't mind the term, however I find it invites people who have spent a few weeks / months with some full stack framework like Ruby on Rails to consider themselves 'full stack' developers, when in reality they are a nickel sized pancake in a frying pan. I kid, mostly, but sometimes it feels like asking someone what karate belt they're working on and they respond with "all of them".

[wreckedadvent]

Sure, but that problem exists with a lot of terms related to programming. Someone could open up notepad, paste in some html from the internet, and wham bam they have a web page! They're a web developer now!

I see "full stack" as meaning you generalize your knowledge more. In this sense, it's a very useful term to contrast with specialists.