I Don’t Believe in Full-Stack Engineering • Hacker News Board

Re: I Don’t Believe in Full-Stack Engineering

#171

Post by davnicwil » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 12:43 PM UTC

bcheung wrote: post #76

warent wrote: post #23

This 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…

Agreed. I would also add, I don't think frontend vs backend accurately describes how skillsets are clustered anymore -- especially with JavaScript's increasing ubiquity. I would cluster skillsets into: ops, development, and design. Ops: making things highly available, logging, performance monitoring, reliability, deployment scripts Development: Writing code on both frontend and backend. Design: Visual design and CSS/…

> so sometimes it is needed to have 1 person do design and another person code it up.

Honestly, even when it is the same person doing both, I feel like it is best practice to do these activities separately anyway. As in, literally on a different day, with a different mindset.

If you design an application's looks and UX according to how the code 'should' work, particularly backend code (DB queries and endpoints etc) you'll most of the time end up with something that's suboptimal for the user without being able to see it - because you have this very detailed mental model of the system behind the curtain and it's 'obvious' that things should work in this way or that in strict accordance with how that system is organised - whereas the user knows / cares nothing about these things and wants things organised in a way that's more intuitive to them.

Re: I Don’t Believe in Full-Stack Engineering

#172

Post by mcv » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 12:44 PM UTC

I don't care what they call me, as long as I'm not stuck in a single environment. I like programming, whether it's on the front-end, the back-end, or somewhere else entirely. And I care more about programming than about design, image optimisation, database optimisation, or configuring containers and deploy tools. I understand those things come with the job, but they're never going to be my strongest point.

I'm fine if people just call me a programmer or software engineer, but it seems that these days, full-stack developer/engineer is what people need to know in order to place me.

Re: I Don’t Believe in Full-Stack Engineering

#173

Post by dfrew » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 1:12 PM UTC

Click bait title with strawman argument. By this author's definition most engineers are not engineers because they're not experts. The moment 'expert' is removed from the definition the argument falls apart.

Some people want to focus on front end problems, some want to focus on backend problems. I personally just want to focus on problems. I'm neither front-end or back-end. I'm a software engineer.

Re: I Don’t Believe in Full-Stack Engineering

#174

Post by michaelcampbell » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 1:26 PM UTC

warent wrote: post #23

This 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…

> That's not what's expected of a full stack engineer.

That is highly variable. In a world where a lot of middle management considers "tech people" fungible, this is EXACTLY what is expected from a full stack engineer.

And, you get to do the work of front end, back end, and database developers all at once for the price of 1 person. What's not to love?

Only partially "/s", because although I'm not in that kind of position at the moment, I've seen it.

Re: I Don’t Believe in Full-Stack Engineering

#175

Post by ivanhoe » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 2:02 PM UTC

dexterdog wrote: post #166

ivanhoe wrote: post #163

I think people don't understand what full-stack dev/engineer really is (or should be). It's not a person who knows everything about everything, that's of course impossible, but it's also not a person who knows only a little about everything either. In my eyes a proper full-stack engineer is someone who's currently deeply involved with X, while having a previous experience (of being deeply involved) in Y and Z. As you…

That just sounds like an experienced developer. X Y and Z could be Bootstrap, React and Angular. In that case you have an experienced front-end developer. In my view a full-stack developer is somebody who can write front ends, middle tier logic and design and use databases efficiently. In various phases of his career he should have worked specifically in each of these areas in depth. My view also includes the idea th…

I totally agree, that's exactly what I had in mind, X-Y-Z being a broader areas, not just a framework or a lib. For instance, I worked (in the span of now almost 20 years) on back-end, front-end, DBA and linux admin positions, and I'm not counting in that all the C++ and Delphi desktop programming that I did as a kid. This gives you a wider perspective on how things operate, and I find it very helpful when consulting clients on sys architecture, since I know how hard is to implement something in any part of the system and can plan for that ahead.

Re: I Don’t Believe in Full-Stack Engineering

#176

Post by segmondy » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 2:21 PM UTC

warent wrote: post #23

This 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…

One thing I find interesting is that people refuse to believe that something is possible when they themselves are terrible at it. I suppose this is the new "there's no 10x engineers"

Re: I Don’t Believe in Full-Stack Engineering

#177

Post by k__ » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 2:38 PM UTC

ssijak wrote: post #142

k__ wrote: post #77

I have to admit, full-stack stuff sounded really horrible to me, coming from front-end development. Databases? Containers? VMs? I don't even know where to start! But when I got into serverless, it wasn't that hard. Sure, with DynamoDB and S3 I have to manage aspects of my storage, but not much. Sure, whith Lambda and API-Gateway I have to manage aspects of my back-end API, but not much. Setting up a DB cluster and mi…

I would never call someone who can only do serverless on the "backend" full-stack.

Haters gonna hate, I guess.

Re: I Don’t Believe in Full-Stack Engineering

#178

Post by speby » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 2:41 PM UTC

Well if he met me, he could add one more person to his list of people he has met over the years that meet his expectations of "full stack developer."

To be honest, I'm getting sick of the front-end/back-end bifurcation that I see literally everywhere now. I'm even guilty of it. It has this notion that you are either back-end only or front-end only. It really leaves no room for actual expertise that allows a software engineer to actually build software.

In fact, the terms back-end developer and front-end developer imply neither person on his or her own can actually build working software without the other. And that's total crap.

These terms started appearing more frequently in the mid-to-late 2000s and nowadays they seem to be all over. But back in the early and/or mid-2000s, "Web Developer" or "Software Engineer" or "Application Developer" sufficed and it was implied that you could build software from scratch, soup to nuts. Of course, in a large organization you had multiple "Web Developers" who surely specialized in one thing or another in order to help their comrades out so not everyone was doing everything at the same time to maintain sanity. But still, as a "Web Developer" it would be expected that you could build software and everything that entailed for the web. Not "Oh well I built the backend... now you just need one other person to do the rest."

Re: I Don’t Believe in Full-Stack Engineering

#179

Post by dosethree » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 3:14 PM UTC

The best teams are T-Shaped (specialists who also generalize) that doesn't mean they are specialists in everything, but as a team they have the expertise they need collectively. Those teams work well because when someone is on vacation you can still execute as a team because you cross train. It's not rocket science here people

Re: I Don’t Believe in Full-Stack Engineering

#180

Post by apple4ever » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 4:11 PM UTC

tylerjwilk00 wrote: post #20

I 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…

I think you are making the false dichotomy between a full stack developer working and a full stack developer working well on all three areas.

Few people says one person can't do it all. Few people say that nobody can do it. But we specialize in areas for a reason. It takes a lot to be an expect in an area, and multiple that by three and its even more work and time.

So sure, one person can do it all. Sure, one person can do it all well. But the later is much rarer than the former. And have specialized people for each area who can focus exclusively on their area is better.