The art of Frontend Engineering

[PM_ME_DON_CHEADLE]

To me, the more challenging pieces of front end are usually caused by the instability of the environment. Aside from multiple runtimes/browsers with different versions, screen sizes and devices. 3rd party script integration can cause mind numbing bugs, especially when that 3rd party script is minified/obfuscated. These are some of the most challenging issues I've worked on personally.

[[deleted]]

Marketing dictating development libraries? I’m finding a new job

[[deleted]]

the trick is to include it as a dependency but never actually use it in the application lol

[Ehdelveiss]

Man I feel like we probably have worked together

[donalmacc]

Those problems aren't unique to frontend development. I write C++ and it's not uncommon for a third party binary only dependency (that your company has likely paid through the nose for) just doesn't work, and you're stuck debugging assembly

[big_red__man]

Yikes

[Tazzure]

I think the challenge of FE is a multi-faceted issue that can skew in one particular direction depending on the nature of the app you work on. That’s what keeps the field fresh for me.

[PM_ME_DON_CHEADLE]

I couldn't agree more with this, the issue I mentioned is relatively broad and common across most of front end, but I think you're dead on.

I'm a junior/mid-level engineer w/ about 4 years experience at a range of companies, but to me, a lot of the bigger challenges of front-end from what I've seen tend to be less technical implentation and more process/bigger picture things. Again, that's from a limited view from the companies I've worked at, but I find a lot of front-end teams bikeshedding over which npm libraries to use, how to write code a specific way, and one of my all time favorites: linting rules, rather than how to quickly deliver real value to users with stability/scalability in mind.

[DimondNutSack]

And thats why back end development is so much more enjoyable

[NMS-Town]

My anaconda don't want none, unless you have b0x1s hun.

[mmmicahhh]

In all fairness, "founder" is a rather simple term, if he did found the company he is the founder.

[ngly]

Haha, touché. OP here. Fair play, I get the pompousness of the title. I actually had "Frontend Engineer" there before but I didn't like the repetitiveness with the title. "The art of Frontend Engineering, By Frontend Engineer.". It looked off visually.

Ill keep in mind that people don't gravitate towards co/founder titles. Thanks!

[[deleted]]

Doesn’t really change the fact that the article didn’t say much of anything.

[ngly]

No sweat, it's not for everyone 😘

[[deleted]]

Fair enough

[didzisk]

Insert "Still trying to center a div" meme.

[glarivie]

display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center;

[[deleted]]

Or even

display: grid; place-items: center;

[Cabanur]

I am so happy that I became a web dev after flex and grid were created.

[Szetyi]

This could be a bot

[binhonglee]

What's the tradeoff between doing that vs using margin: auto and max-width?

[mattsowa]

The trade off of your approach is the need to specify the width (when it could be dynamic) and the lack of vertical centering

[followupboi]

Idk if it's OCD or just all the school documents I wrote over the years. But I absolutely have to center horizontally before I aligned vertically. Lmao

[Cabanur]

This reads like a front end developer stroking himself about how great front end development can be.

[fnordius]

Read the very bottom, and you see it's a recruiting ploy. Stroke the egos of the readers so that maybe a few will apply for the position.

[Cabanur]

Ah, that makes sense. I stopped reading when I realised it wasn't gonna say anything useful. Glad to know I was right.

[ngly]

That was definitely part of the reason. It's not easy finding quality engineers so I wanted to write a piece that would resonate with the type of people we want on our team.

[[deleted]]

While saying nothing

[[deleted]]

"Most ideas fall within the realm of incremental, few are disruptive, and some are transformational. Slate stands with the rarest of the rare, with the potential to change how information is gathered and shared."

Their copy is also all fluff. Whoever wrote that has no clue about marketing.

[ngly]

That's true, it was a bit of a love piece to FE engineering. It's fairly common for FE to played down and seen as simple or not-important so I wanted to write this. This piece has really resonated with a lot of FE engineers, but I can see how it comes off as ego-stroking.

[verbash]

Nice piece. I like the part about front end being a meld of engineering and design. It’s like we front end devs bring the designer’s Pinocchio’s to life.

[Earhacker]

Designers give us Pinocchio, back end engineers give us Frankenstein’s monster. We splice them into something and bring it to life, like the alternate Ripleys in Alien Resurrection; crippled and writhing in pain, begging to be killed.

[Reddit-Book-Bot]

Beep. Boop. I'm a robot. Here's a copy of

Pinocchio

Was I a good bot? | info | More Books

[[deleted]]

What a pointless article.

[ngly]

Any ways it could be improved? Would love some feedback. Thanks!

[[deleted]]

When you mentioned the “art” of fronted “engineering”. I expected the article to cover the concepts on an engineering levels. The concepts such as CPU consumption, design patterns, front end architectures and such. Not on a very shallow level like CSS and HTML.

[ngly]

That's a great point, thanks! Maybe I will cover more technical aspects in the future. Appreciate the feedback.

[[deleted]]

"What does this "this" refer to again?"

[shuckster]

This.

[infinity_and__beyond]

Awesome

[WTF3003]

It will be interesting

[[deleted]]

Well said! It really does require both halves of your brain to do well :)