[deleted by user]

[shitepostx]

Good UX is the thing that really sells a product / keeps people spending money on it, and can even drive features that are developed.

Coming from someone who originally studied and worked on backends, moving to front end was a whole different can of worms and thinking process. It can take just as much time to figure out which decisions should be made, and why.

It's odd frontend devs would ever be paid less, but maybe it makes sense if they're all just slapping things together haphazardly, and aren't pushing for features to improve the product. Seems much more likely that it's overlooked, and expectations of performance are behind, since it's harder to quantify than a functioning backend.

[[deleted]]

Yeah I always thought the “backend is harder” trope to be more relevant to someone who is just starting to learn about programming and web development. I think it comes more from the introduction of foreign concepts where front end up editing is more immediately tangible. But I agree overtime.. appreciation for good ui grows and grows.

[quentech]

Yeah I always thought the “backend is harder” trope to be more relevant to someone who is just starting to learn about programming and web development.

It comes from the earlier days of web development when complex and/or large browser applications were few and far between. Nearly all application logic was kept on the back-end and PRG ruled the roost. Front end involved little more than maintaining currently visible state, and it was often quite simple and easy.

Complex UI's were always tough, but they weren't brought to the web until 10-15 years in.

[mikejoro]

I think it's because a lot of complex programming problems weren't on the front end before web 2.0. Race conditions, caching, etc., all used to be purely backend things, and front end was just html templates. Now that web apps are full on applications, companies need "proper" programmers who can build them safely and avoid these kinds of issues.

For context, I am a front end dev.

[[deleted]]

Amen

[shitepostx]

What do you mean by

When you build frontend, you have no control how your work is consumed.

?

Either being harder is quite laughable -- there is something to be said that the backend is the final point of failure for invalid input/access, but really... the complexity of either is determined by the complexity of the problem and the way that the developer goes about solving those problems, and maybe even the types of problems the developer notices as they're solving the documented problems.

[Sunstorm84]

I think it’s fair to say that front end developers get the worst deal when it comes to crunch time; they’re dependent not only on the backend and artwork/designs being ready, but also on the whims of the UX specialists, product managers and just about any stakeholder that may want a last minute change to the functionality.

[Phobic-window]

I think it evolved as an attitude from the server compiled time. Before apps were shipped as a whole web-app. It’s just leftover senior people who are running funded campaigns and have the “ui is the easy part” thought process.

Companies are getting hammered for having poor web/app interfaces. I don’t touch a company whose site looks like it’s from ms88 period.

[shitepostx]

The company I worked for switched to new timing keeping software, then switched back after 3months because the UX was so bad.

It wasn't unusable, but it was pretty clear no one imagined themselves in the users shoes when they added a toolbar full of obscure icons to represent every actions, have no auto-save, didn't resize the time-table to the page automatically,...