"Those that say it can’t be done should get out of the way of those doing it"
And sometimes that who are doing it need to listen to those who are asking the question, "Should it be done?"
I Don’t Believe in Full-Stack Engineering
21–30 of 199 posts
Re: I Don’t Believe in Full-Stack Engineering
#22The article is titled "I Don't Believe in Full-Stack Engineering", yet states "If you’re only hiring full-stack engineers" as though they are something the author believes exist.
It seems that the real approach of this article should have been to outline why hiring ONLY full-stack engineers may not be a good idea.
Re: I Don’t Believe in Full-Stack Engineering
#23This article is conflating junior developers with full-stack engineering.
I work on the entire stack. Can I work with databases and write queries? Sure. Can I do it as well as a data architect? No. That's not what's expected of a full stack engineer.
We can have meaningful, productive discussions with everyone on all parts of the stack. We'll talk with the data architect, write/tweak a query if we need to, we'll talk with the product manager and collect some features, we'll communicate the requirements to a backend engineer if one exists and help prepare the API as necessary to ensure the frontend can query for only what it needs when it needs it, and we'll connect it to the frontend which we built (yes, even using data chunking, semantic UI, and accessibility, all of which are expected in professional front-end development)
To the purist engineer, none of this is part of their reality because the purist doesn't have business requirements or tradeoffs. In the real world of business, these skills generate profit and are especially useful with new products and prototypes. If you're experienced enough and have a great team with you, you can execute on this with minimal technical debt that doesn't create long-term problems while still providing users with a great experience.
Re: I Don’t Believe in Full-Stack Engineering
#24I've always wanted to build a server from scratch: build a simple chip running a one-trick web server that can respond to a GET request and have it serve up a single page application, and a not-a-lot-of-bauds serial modem connected to the internet through a gateway of some sort. It'd probably take me a year of nights and weekends, but at the end I would be comfortable calling myself a full-stack developer.
Re: I Don’t Believe in Full-Stack Engineering
#25Ha! Referencing your own tweet, from earlier this month. Awesome!
I disagree mostly. I’m pretty full stack from UI down to circuit design, but that’s after almost 20y in the business.
Re: I Don’t Believe in Full-Stack Engineering
#26This article is conflating junior developers with full-stack engineering. I work on the entire stack. Can I work with databases and write queries? Sure. Can I do it as well as a data architect? No. That's not what's expected of a full stack engineer. We can have meaningful, productive discussions with everyone on all parts of the stack. We'll talk with the data architect, write/tweak a query if we need to, we'll talk…
Tradeoffs matter a whole lot. I recently had to replace some beautiful SVGs by PNGs for various reasons centered around the business requirement that a page be below some size, and loads in less than some time.
A purist would cringe. I cringed a bit too. But the end result matters the most.
Re: I Don’t Believe in Full-Stack Engineering
#27All this talk of front end and back end and I'm just sitting here not knowing how to do any of it.
At least I get paid lots of money.
Re: I Don’t Believe in Full-Stack Engineering
#28what's the takeaway from this blog post? There's no such thing as a full stack engineer so don't bother learning about databasing and server concerns and devops; just focus on front-end? Are we just criticizing people for doing their jobs to the best of their ability?
A full-stack engineer is not always going to write the best front-end ever; there may be some kludgey stying and some non-semantic HTML (divs and spans!). As a non-DBA, queries may not have optimal execution paths. There may be questionable backend design decisions.
This is an obvious conclusion and does not really speak to the value that a developer brings to an organization. Development is a means to an end, and there are plenty of business cases that an experienced full stack developer can solve in a 'good enough' manner.
We run the risk of letting the perfect become the enemy of the good. Any mature developer should have one or two areas of deep expertise and have enough skill in other domains to get a job done.
Re: I Don’t Believe in Full-Stack Engineering
#29I disagree with the article. It's a 1,000 word false dichotomy between Full Stack vs. Insert Specialist Here. Sure, if you're a Fortune 500 company, go ahead and hire a DBA, Cloud Architect, Backend Engineer, UI/UX Designer, Graphic Artist, Social Media Marketer, etc. You'll have a few million $ in salary overhead. It may take longer to produce a final product. BUT, it will probably be way better than a product that…
That 6 week deadline is always going to be 18-20 in reality
Re: I Don’t Believe in Full-Stack Engineering
#30The article is titled "I Don't Believe in Full-Stack Engineering", yet states "If you’re only hiring full-stack engineers" as though they are something the author believes exist. It seems that the real approach of this article should have been to outline why hiring ONLY full-stack engineers may not be a good idea.
The author probably meant that they don't believe that full-stack engineering is beneficial compared to hiring primarily specialists.