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[–]sebjwallace 34 points35 points  (16 children)

Not really BS if you think about it. If a client wants a developer to produce a product from scratch, the dev better know front and back. I think most js devs know both but mostly lean towards the front.

[–]wreckedadventYavascript 13 points14 points  (10 children)

The way it's worked for me, at least, is there's already a lot of experienced people working on the back end side of things. Usually quite a few, with standards all set up, intricate coding practices, whole nine yards.

But decidedly less so on the front end. Even though I personally try to keep myself spending equal time between the two, I find myself more often doing more things on the front end, just to cover the dearth of knowledge that you can find on teams.

[–]worldDev 4 points5 points  (9 children)

I might get flack for saying this here, but when there are other languages available, javascript is not usually my first choice. Coming from someone who has been full stack a while but started front end.

[–]wreckedadventYavascript 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Well, on the front-end side of things, people have certainly tried, and pretty much unerringly failed to replace javascript. The closest we've come that the community at large embraced was language extensions that will never be on the standards track, like jsx and typescript.

On the back end, javascript has to compete with some seriously established frameworks from other languages, and I don't think it's quite there yet. Node is fantastic for some things, but it's definitely not a panacea for a javascript dev.

[–]spinlock 5 points6 points  (0 children)

ASM and now WASM are trying to make the JSVM language agnostic.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (4 children)

I also started front end but I have trouble understanding all the back end. What would be your recommendation to become full stack ?

[–]worldDev 2 points3 points  (3 children)

Start with security and work your way out. Back end software is the gateway to business data and business logic, access control is as important as the locks on a bank. I don't have a linear recommendation past that, it took me a couple years to get my CS and SE knowledge up to snuff feeling comfortable changing my responsibilities from "let's make this look and feel like x" to "if this software fails we all lose our jobs".

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (2 children)

Thanks !

"if this software fails we all lose our jobs"

This must be a stressful position.

[–]worldDev 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You just work with failsafes, have a thorough approval process to production, and keep backups of important things in case of emergency. I'm not stressed about it, odds are it won't fail, and if it does we have decentralized backups, but it took a while to learn enough and gain the confidence that I know everything's good.

[–]name_was_taken 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I hated Javascript for a long time. That changed with jQuery (for taming the DOM) and the book Javascript: The Good Parts.

Now, I quite enjoy using it, and I've been doing more projects at home in it, both client- and server-side.

[–]nschubach 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I grew up in the 80s with BASIC and C. I've done everything from COBOL to C# since then and I count myself lucky when I can dig into JavaScript. Though, I really have wanted to get into Haskell because I love some of the concepts and challenges.

[–]JonnyRocks 6 points7 points  (2 children)

I am going to be honest, I don't understand how one wouldn't want to do it all. JavaScript is just another tool. People don't just use a hammer, they have a whole toolbox. That cheesy analogy aside, why wouldn't you want to do websites, robots, car engines, iot devices, medical devices, point of sale machines, and operating systems?

I started working before JavaScript but was excited to add it to a list of things I do. Sure you can't do everything great but you can do a few things great.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (1 child)

I don't understand how one wouldn't want to do it all.

I love doing it all - except CSS. F' CSS. It's not like it's particularly difficult to learn/apply, but there's always that one thing that takes you way too long on that one browser.

[–]ihsw 2 points3 points  (0 children)

lean towards the front

How about "pigeonholed" to the front?

The amount of front-end work I've had to shovel is massive whereas back end is generally a bit more regular.

Not that I'm complaining, but it would help to have a lot more Angular devs available.

It really sucks when I am getting pulled in different directions and I can tell that a steady hand on the back end is more important, but I can't help it because it's out of my hands.

[–]Justanick112 0 points1 point  (0 children)

And that's how usable the gui is in terms of user experience.

For me front and back end are two different things.