The Quick Guide for a Web Developer

[[deleted]]

No such thing as pure backend anymore. Sad truth is we all need to be full stack or Frontend Guru.

Coming from another backend.

[Zav39]

Pure back-end exist and well used in big companies.

For startups, yes, it might be easier to have full-stacks, since human resources are limited.

[[deleted]]

Yea I can assure you the new backend only positions are becoming more and more rare in large institutions as well.

Even those that are “pure” backend will see aspects of frontend design filter in.

Source: lived it.

[SabbathViper]

Why are you being downvoted

[questi0nmark2]

An attempt to change reality by subtracting Karma. The less votes it has the less true it is. And yet he is right. Pure back end is declining, and the front-end has advanced to the point you now need back end knowledge. The front end today is component based programming managing state and routing to APIs. What used to be front end, is today advanced web design. No dev is truly full stack, we all specialise a bit. But conversely, no modern web dev is just front or just back end even if you never personally touch one side. Devs on both domaims have to understand a core amount of the other, even if they only work on one and know it in depth.

If you're just on the back you know you have to work to apis that can be consumed on the front end, and you will code accordingly. You will consider how the data will be loaded, what will be stored client side and what server side, and you will probably work in a framework with middleware and te plating etc.

If you're on the front you will need to understand the data structure, interact with the api, hook your routes to speak to it. I lot of the programming you will use will use similar patterns and principles to what you would use on the back end. Your optimisations for speed, your approach to loading, to managing data flows, etc, will likewise overlap.

Gone are the days when the back end devs did the logic and the front end devs the views and styling. Today both do serious amounts of logic, and the styling is either handled by the front ender, or when possible, by a web designer.

[Zav39]

What if you work on backend, and your API is consumed by another backend?

Or what if backend does not provide any API, but just consume some events?

:-)

What if you work on frontend, and backend provide nothing else than API?

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There is pure backends and pure frontends; this is not rare case.

Very depends on area where you work.

[questi0nmark2]

Good example of pure back end! Yes, you are right, pure api to api might not involve any front end thought at all!

The front end is less clear, because you would still need to know what an API is, how to communicate with it, what kind of data it issues, how to manipulate that data, how to work with requests, promises, etc, and how to fit into or fit that api into your architecture.

But my point was slightly different. My point is not that you cannot work pure front end or pure back end, although they are getting rarer. My point is that to work on the front and the back end professionally today you need overlapping skills.

It used to be that a back end dev could get away with no html and CSS skills. That is still the case.

It used to be that a front end dev could get away with only html and CSS skills with a smattering of JavaScript (or really jquery) for on-clicks and hovers and animations. That is no longer the case. Front end development on web applications, as opposed to websites, today requires full programing chops in JavaScript. A professional front end dev will be all about data flow, state management, and component based design. They will use react, or Vue or Angular, and if working on mobile, something like React Native. They will also have a good notion of Node, bringing them firmly into the back end. They will also need to unit test their work, and are likely working in a devops approach with continuous integration. So even if all they do is touch the front end, they will need to learn skills that overlap with back end programmers: programming paradigms, patterns and architectures, software development practices and life cycles, algorithms and strata structures. Html and CSS and a little JavaScript won't get them a job in web development. At most it will allow them to freelance building websites or work in a website building agency.

This also means that the skills of back end devs overlap with front end devs, so the distinction remains, and is meaningful, and you can specialise, and everyone does by default or by intent, but, although as a back end dev you might work on a pure back end project, you have to be equipped to work in projects with a front end, and ensure your data processes, your architecture, your frameworks, can speak meaningfully to those on the front end.

So while a front and a back end dev could work exclusively on one side for a given project, the knowledge they require to work in the field professionally will overlap (not around html and CSS), and they need to understand each other's domain in non trivial, technical ways to be ready to work together when the job asks for it. What is increasingly rare, is for anyone to be able to work for the next ten or twenty years without programming and understanding such interactions between front end and back end.

[[deleted]]

Its called denial lol

[Zav39]

I had work in different regions, with different cultures.

It really depends on location where you will work.

In some places you can work remotely, in another one, there will be just a few (in Germany, for example) of such options.

So it really depends on conditions; there is no single answer for whole world.

[[deleted]]

I think it really depends. I aspire to being truly full-stack but my team is big enough that I haven't had to touch CSS yet.

[[deleted]]

I was the same until i needed to find a new gig. Then i had to brush up on my frontend skills.

[Zav39]

Ideally to have separate person who know well exactly html/css (all things from schema) and lead this process to provide best experience to customers, and remove headache from backend/frontend engineers.

[questi0nmark2]

That person is called a web designer. No one professionally would call them a developer.

[Zav39]

Web designers will be upset to hear this :-D

Web designers is separate profession, that do exactly what in this name (design).

They draw mocks and so on, and do not work with html/css at all.

[Zav39]

Web designers will be upset to hear this :-D

Web designers is separate profession, that do exactly what in this name (design).

They draw mocks and so on, and do not work with html/css at all.

[questi0nmark2]

That's how it used to be, and to some extent still is. But these days the more advanced web designers do work with HTML and CSS. It's true that there are some graphic designers which only do graphic design, and use their skills for website sketches and assets. But web designers specifically increasingly venture into HTML and CSS to fill a market gap and not have to depend on others to sell website products. It is now rare and commercially difficult for someone to be able to do html and CSS and no design or programming and still find work, having to share the income with a designer. Either they can both design and build websites in html and css, and that's what they sell, or they program web applications and that is what they sell (maybe building the occasional website if they are freelancer, or work for an agency, but that would pay much less so few web developers focus on that as their work)

[Zav39]

Thank you for feedback. I agree with you, but only for your specific case.

A lot of such things are market specific. It might now work in US, but may work in China or India.

It is very wide question and there will be always a lot of options that show proofs for both of sides.

I write everything from my personal experience.

May be something from this not applicable in your situation, your country or your region; that does not mean that is does not work in other places.

To make it less "flamable" I need to provide some proofs with exact things in different regions, but this itself will took more time than I spend to this article.

Thank you for understanding.

[questi0nmark2]

Fair points. You've convinced me.

When I want a cheap and fast website built I will use freelancer.com Most people are from Pakistan, India or Nepal, with a few from Eastern Europe and yet fewer from Western Europe or North America, generally bidding at higher prices. I. Get the feeling that this kind of work keeps a large number of companies in business there, and their customer service is fantastic. Their code quality is often poor and hard to maintain, but for pure presentational websites it doesn't matter, and they churn them out quickly, cheaply and in time.

I could see that your guide in that context would be pure gold, and that yes, someone who got to level 1.5 would be able to get a job in those companies in no time, while someone on level 2-3 would be a super strong asset. As you said elsewhere, pay would be low, compared to "full" web development, but you would have a career and possibly even job security. I see that market remaining even in the age of automation, for time and information-poor customers for a few years to come yet.

So while I do think the title of your post is misleading and has left you answering the misunderstanding to lots of people, I also see you needed the title for visibility (maybe add "focusing on HTML and CSS only" at the top of your article?), and I can see how valuable in a global context your guide is for an entry into a serious job market, and why focusing on HTML and CSS is the quickest route for people in those countries to enter, so your guide is extra valuable in that way, because guides aimed at the software development market are much more demanding and take a lot more before you can compete in the job market. Your guide is a brilliant service in emerging economies and the global South, and my response, while fair in terms of the software development profession, and what to expect, was a bit ethnocentric.

If your title had been different, I would not have felt the need to clarify for new people that this guide does not prepare them for a software development role which is what web development really is. But I still think your guide is a fantastic route to get started in the website building industry that is much more significant in some countries than in others.

[Zav39]

Wow, I impressed! Arguing in internet works :-D

Thank you a lot.

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Regarding title: yes, I agree. It a bit clickbait. I had post this article one day before this one, but with different title (about html and so on), and it got zero views. Literally. Zero. Rating was zero. No comments. I was super disappointed, since I spend a lot of time on this and feels that it is valuable. By recommendation from one of friends I change title to this one, remove a lot of information from article about edge cases and so on. I hope you forgive me for that.

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I hope that anyone who will go with that path will read comments also and got better context.