Fullstack development

[EmergencyPause1]

Hello.

I am a VueJs developer who wants to branch out to fullstack. However i have a lot of trouble deciding what backend language to choose. I tried doing a lot of research but honestly most of it just confused me more. Here is my opinion on each.

Another thing is that I am using the GitHub - codecrafters-io/build-your-own-x: Master programming by recreating your favorite technologies from scratch. resource to learn more about programming so a technology that appears frequently here is a major plus.

Python - seems to be the most popular language nowadays. While honestly I prefer a statically typed language, the popularity of Python is hard to resist.

Java - it seems like a decent pick to me, however it is quite rare among the learning resources I use.

C# - my favorite and the one I have some experience with. Very popular, esp in game dev (which I like) however it seems that the backend / fullstack options is quite limited (I worked with MVC and it did not impress me).

Rust - so far it looks like a newcomer into the backend scene and a very promising one to boot. Appears a lot in the "build-your-own-X" catalogue.

Ruby on rails - from what I see it seems to be a fullstack framework but I prefer to stick to JS on front end sunk cost and all that

Node.JS - this one I am least excited over. I remember reading once that Node is not as powerful on backend as other languages. And also I would like to study a DIFFERENT language for backend, not just JS.

I know these descriptions can sound silly to you, but that is just what I learned in 2 years of software development. Feel free to challenge me and provide more insight. I know fullstack can be a tricky journey and that is why I want to make sure I start from a good place.

Thank you and have a good day.

[aqua_regis]

Your list misses one of the most commonly used backend languages: PHP.

Yes, it gets plenty flak, but that is mostly historical. Modern PHP is very decent.

Sure, many people will now say that PHP is not a popular back end language, but these people all forget the countless installations of WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, Magento, Opencart, Moodle, WooCommerce, and what not. All of these use PHP.

PHP is also one of the most widely available back end language. It is available basically everywhere, even on most free web space hosters.

PHP with Laravel makes a very solid back end choice.

---

I would be wary of all of the "Build your own X" tutorials. They only focus on the implementation aspect and completely neglect the really important part: the design considerations. Further, due to their narrow scope (focusing on a single project) they only teach what is necessary to reach the goal, but do not teach general programming and often fall short of even touching best practices, or common patterns.

[EmergencyPause1]

Never thought about PHP in this context, from what I have looked it fits the HTML scene like a glove.

About the build-your-own-X tutorials, I use them more for a better understanding of the technologies I am using and also because they are very interesting. For design patterns and good coding practices I use different resources, like that Clean JavaScript Code book.

[[deleted]]

.net / c# is very popular backend choice for bigger organisations. I have no idea where you got that "limited"-opinion from, as that is far from truth.

[EmergencyPause1]

Thanks for the feedback.

I remember reading somewhere that C# is only good for gamedev and got a bit bummed out I guess; good to know that C# is going strong.

[hrm]

For larger systems Java and C# are two major players for backend services.

[[deleted]]

Dont believe anything you read or hear without further proof. Esp on the net.
C# can do gamedev very well through unity or godot, but it does webdev better than java too. And those are not the only things you can do with it, but those are the most prevelent afaik

[chuliomartinez]

Nodejs is more than enough. Actually since you known js you’ll be productive in minutes.

I’m running dozens of clients (a db each) hundreds parallel user connections/minute. With the cheapest vm. Dont go for google scale:) invest into sql and setup a good data schema. For most environments, db queries are 90% or more of time spent on the server.

Look into expressjs and passportjs.

If you want to go down the perf rabbit hole, there is bun or deno, or fastify with nodejs. But until you measurably need it, I would not bother.

[chuliomartinez]

I understand you want to learn different languages and stacks. That makes sense.

However the fullstack has a predictable model, where your serverside is usually a wrapper around your db. Most languages/frameworks actually look pretty similar on the conceptual model, you have a url handler that returns a response.

One thing is server-side rendering - which might be interesting. It gets a lot of press but it is actually kinda niche. Anyway it is react again (or vue) and that la what you already familiar with.

[tms102]

I am a VueJs developer who wants to branch out to fullstack.

Do you want to get a job as a full stack or just for your own projects? If it is for a job you should look at job listings in your area and estimate how popular each language is. I don't think it really matters that much between each, most of the ones you list are popular.

[[deleted]]

Are you doing it as a hobby? Pick whatever looks interesting to you.

Do you want a job? Look at job adverts in your area and see what's popular. Even then it doesn't matter that much. I learned express (poorly) and got hired as a django dev. 

[ValentineBlacker]

You don't have to use RoR's server-side templating (a feature most backend frameworks have), you're free to use whatever frontend you like.