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The Myth of the Full Stack Developer

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Re: The Myth of the Full Stack Developer

#71

Post by noxToken »

_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…

I can't access TFA at the moment, so I could be off base. Perhaps that quote is a jab at people who claim competency where none exists? I personally know front-end devs who will claim back-end mastery cause they set up a Digital Ocean droplet. I mean it does take a bit of command-line know how that a non-tech person will probably struggle with, but that's far and away from being full stack.

There's a line between falsely claiming a title and the no true Scotsman fallacy. You've accurately highlighted real world application of the term full stack, but the term absolutely does mean different things to different people.

Re: The Myth of the Full Stack Developer

#72

Post by dasil003 »

wyldfire wrote: post #53

> “Only an individual who has had exposure to and experience in each of the elements of a stack can truly call themselves a full stack developer.” This term has always struck me as pretty nebulous. Where does it end? Do I have to have written an ISR, or a bootloader? Probably not, but the term "full stack developer" is unqualified, so how can I tell? No doubt this term is very context-sensitive. "Please guess what th…

If you are an experienced programmer there is a good chance this guess might be more accurate than what a recruiter tells you.

Re: The Myth of the Full Stack Developer

#73

Post by pbhjpbhj »

wolco wrote: post #67
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

Negotiating requirements, and re-negotiating, and again, then chasing up content, ... bleurgh.

Re: The Myth of the Full Stack Developer

#74

Post by jklein11 »

treehau5 wrote: post #56
aphextron wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think your analogy holds up. Theres really no such thing as just a "doctor". Everyone specializes in some field, even if that specialization is in generalization. But doctors who specialize in general cases (i.e. family practice) serve the role of passing you off to the appropriate specialist to fulfill your needs. And in the same way I would expect a highly experienced programmer to know the limits of their…

Specialization is for insects.

Being an insect doesn't seem like such a bad thing[1]

1. http://www.techtimes.com/articles/19731/20141108/insects-are...

Re: The Myth of the Full Stack Developer

#75

Post by JamesBarney »

aphextron wrote: post #21
purple-again wrote: post #7

This again. Is a doctor in his first year of being a full fledged doctor any less of a doctor than one with 20 years of experience? The more experienced doctor is almost assuredly better and preferable, but both of them are doctors. This assumption that you have to be a master of the front end and a master of the back end to be a full stack developer is flawed from the start. Have you created economic value with a co…

I don't think your analogy holds up. Theres really no such thing as just a "doctor". Everyone specializes in some field, even if that specialization is in generalization. But doctors who specialize in general cases (i.e. family practice) serve the role of passing you off to the appropriate specialist to fulfill your needs. And in the same way I would expect a highly experienced programmer to know the limits of their…

I can attest that there is a such thing as a doctor. I saw one just a couple of weeks ago. I'm pretty sure she specializes in family practice, but she is a doctor none the less. And she'd probably be be very confused if I told her she didn't exist, or she wasn't a doctor because doctors don't exist.

Re: The Myth of the Full Stack Developer

#76

Post by WalterSear »

noxToken wrote: post #71
_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…

I can't access TFA at the moment, so I could be off base. Perhaps that quote is a jab at people who claim competency where none exists? I personally know front-end devs who will claim back-end mastery cause they set up a Digital Ocean droplet. I mean it does take a bit of command-line know how that a non-tech person will probably struggle with, but that's far and away from being full stack. There's a line between fal…

There's no line. It's a huge grey area, like any other skillset. The person you described did work on the front and back-end.

This is an argument about semantics.

Re: The Myth of the Full Stack Developer

#78

Post by jrimbault »

_joel wrote: post #16
jrimbault wrote: post #4

What's your definition of a "Full Stack Developer", I'd like to have the opinions of people here ? Reading on Wikipedia, it seems, for someone living on Linux, knowing a full LAMP is... trivial. Configuring a debian box is like riding a bicycle. Once you have some good apache confs in your personal library, configuring apache is a breeze. Configuring MySQL (|mariadb) might need some googling if you want to do it righ…

I'd include automation of all above too

You can't automate the "writing software" part, but yeah. I voluntarily avoided talking about automation because that seems out of scope for "Full Stack Developper" which seems to mean (to me): "someone who knows how sh*t works and computers are not magical". And automation is more in line with sysadmin stuff than dev stuff.
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