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The Myth of the Full Stack Developer

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Re: The Myth of the Full Stack Developer

#61

Post by vpeters25 »

tyurok wrote: post #10

"Full stack developer" is just a new word for "programmer". "Programmer" could be a role for any part of the stack, you just have to solve the problem in hand and you're good. If you're good or not, specialist or generalist, that's another discussion.

I sort of agree. I personally got tired of answering recruiters' questions about how much time i spent in frontend vs backend.

I also realized there was an increasing trend in job postings looking for "full-stack" so I started advertising myself as such.

Re: The Myth of the Full Stack Developer

#63

Post by atbentley »

Value is only realised by completed features, so a developer that can deliver completed, value producing features by themselves is a good thing. Teams should aim to have compositions of experts in single fields with developers who know enough in all fields. This way features can be owned by a single developer, pairing when needed.

Re: The Myth of the Full Stack Developer

#64

Post by british_india »

What a ridiculous article. It just takes a lot of experience to become an actual Full Stack Developer. Most developers begin in the front end and then have to claw their way out of that to become back-end developers. But that doesn't mean a back-end developer suddenly forgets everything they used in the past.

Also, there are developers working in smaller companies who have no choice but to be a full-stack developer. It just takes a lot of work. Disparaging the concept just because you've not mastered both ends does not in any way disparage the concept itself.

Re: The Myth of the Full Stack Developer

#65

Post by kakarot »

Isn't this just an argument of generalization vs specialization?

Of course the specialists will know more about their domain.

But the generalist is more useful in many situations. Both play their role in an effective team.

Re: The Myth of the Full Stack Developer

#66

Post by braindouche »

jnordwick wrote: post #12

Why do you only ever hear about full stack developers in web developer context? I work in FinTech and trading systems - very high performance and low latency systems. I deal with databases and huge amounts of data too. And I've (as well as coworkers) have hacked together trading GUIs and simple CGI to throw together data visualizations. But none of us would ever call ourselves full-stack and we'd never hire a front-e…

The web is a flexible place. When I started writing code for money, I was working up user-facing PHP interfaces to databases, and I was called a back-end developer. 7 years later, doing fundamentally the same work only moreso, I was called a front-end developer and paid 10k less a year. Everything is always in motion.

Re: The Myth of the Full Stack Developer

#67

Post by wolco »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #60

I used to do some part-time (second job) lone web dev, this is why i don't anymore: >"Maintaining a deep knowledge of both front end tools, libraries, and techniques (down to browser-specific quirks), as well as backend architecture […] requires years of experience dedicated to each in addition to the time to keep up to date with how those areas are changing." // Basically the time to keep up to date with all the tec…

Plus requirement gathering and support and throw in a sales pitch to the board

Re: The Myth of the Full Stack Developer

#68

Post by vkjv »

_lex wrote: post #24

>"most “full stack” developers have not truly mastered front end and back end" We need to do something about the default of developer bashing prevalent in our culture. There's no true Scotsman, nobody is 100% perfectly attuned to the latest developments on any surface. Instead engineers develop along competencies that are required in their work. If you need to deep dive into a backend problem, you'll get better at th…

Came to say the same. I've seen good developers that are working on front-end, back-end, and full-stack.

The key is that they are a good developer. Where they focus usually has more to do with the organizational structure and its values than the engineer. If they are the best in their area, if you move them, they quickly become the best in that area.

Besides when back-end means you work on a web API and frontend means you work on a web UI, is there really that much of a difference? It's not like we are talking about completely different technologies.

Re: The Myth of the Full Stack Developer

#69

Post by wolco »

thegayngler wrote: post #58

Have to agree with the article somewhat. Its very difficult to be great at every part of the stack. Big companies require this as their applications last longer than the usual startups. Backend developers think they are full stack if they can throw HTML and JavaScript on the page. The current state of things is that the front end of things is way more complex and having to consider user interactions ends up being as…

Backend stacks can be simple where most of the complexity ends up in the frontend but a good backend can take the complexity out of the frontend.

Backends are usually written in a more matuure/stable language. That can help make difficult things in javascript really simple.

Frontends are more fun to work with because you can see your output while you work.

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