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Ask HN: Is back end dev generally easier than front end?

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Re: Ask HN: Is back end dev generally easier than front end?

#91

Post by 5350-uiop-1130 »

hnlmorg wrote: post #28

Easier in some ways, harder in others. Easier: + You don't need to write a thousand edge case code to cover different devices + There's less "trial and error" trying to figure out what sequence of CSS properties is needed to adjust some of the simplest of designs + More choices of languages available (should Javascript / Typescript not float your boat) + More consistency in that you only need to worry about your back…

thanks for the breakdown.

> You can no longer rely on other people to deal with security for you. Mistakes aren't just going to be rendering bugs

this is the one that concerns me most. i was thinking maybe php with wordpress to leverage my existing skills but even then is that really backend or maybe not.

Re: Ask HN: Is back end dev generally easier than front end?

#92

Post by anonymoushn »

daniel_iversen wrote: post #33

I think backend is easier because you can write “passable” code and develop a passable architecture and nobody would be any the wiser whereas the Frontend is right in your users faces and it’s a high bar you’re competing with!

The median web frontend is broken in dozens of ways and, when rendered on recent cutting-edge hardware, performs like molasses flowing uphill in the winter. It's seriously difficult for the things your output would be compared to to get any worse.

Re: Ask HN: Is back end dev generally easier than front end?

#93

Post by 5350-uiop-1130 »

HeckFeck wrote: post #6

I find it easier, simply because backend is typically the one language. It's easier to understand when there are fewer layers to everything. All I have to do is ensure the routes correctly serve/receive JSON and that's where my worries end. Honestly, if you're resonably comptent in JS you can make the jump to backend, or even systems programming. Linus Groth is the second-in-command of SerenityOS, and he has come fro…

i have experience with php. so was thinking maybe php with a focus on wordpress.

Re: Ask HN: Is back end dev generally easier than front end?

#94

Post by 5350-uiop-1130 »

caskstrength wrote: post #73

> I'm not good at animations, responsive layouts, pixel perfection, es6 > The simplest task now so complicated, many edge cases. > Things get deprecated (or sunsetted) so fast. > When I open the chrome inspector there's 10 new features which I ignore. It's too much. I don't do web development at all, but from the outside it always seemed to me that most of those problems are completely self-inflicted by front end dev…

from my experience, it's the expectations of the client has changed so much. and it's very difficult to deliver on their ambitions with the web browser as your platform.

i feel like its impossible to get anything right because often the final solution is kind of nebulous existing in the clients mind only and often they dont have an appreciation for complexity. a simple adjustment for them may be hours or more of work.

Re: Ask HN: Is back end dev generally easier than front end?

#95

Post by 5350-uiop-1130 »

falbala wrote: post #47

Front-end is awful in (large) part because of the tooling IMO. In the backend world, you need to make sure your _vertical_ (aka scale) is respected. It's a matter of your code, your infra plus the tooling to help you. If you're good at what you do, use the correct engineering approaches to have an efficient program and use up to date infrastructure or platforms, and use an up to date language (Rust, Python, Java is e…

i feel like with backend the problems are more concrete and discrete. kind of like 1 + 1 = 2. there is only one correct answer.

with front end things get way more complicated. so many browsers, viewports and you can never be 100% the client will see the same thing that you've been working on for X hours because of the unpredictable environment they test on.

Re: Ask HN: Is back end dev generally easier than front end?

#97

Post by bayesian_horse »

It's less about 'hard' and more about what you enjoy. There are many jobs out there which aren't pure back- or frontend. And within frontend, there is space for people who excel at writing idiomatic, elegant code, can cope with typesystems etc.

Branching out to backend programming won't hurt. But an alternative might be to become an expert in Typescript, or one of the more exotic technologies like ClojureScript, F# (Fable), Elm...

To learn more backend programming I'd recommend Django. It's popular, productive, and as a dynamic language very close to typescript.

Re: Ask HN: Is back end dev generally easier than front end?

#98

Post by Jensson »

Nextgrid wrote: post #88
valenterry wrote: post #32

No, Backend is not easier than Frontend. Both are equally hard, since you will always be pushed to get the most out of what is currently available in terms of technology & tooling, no matter of your niche. If not, your job will become worth less since you are going to be automated away at some point. A fallacy that I found many frontend-developers have is that they believe Backend is the same as Frontend, just that y…

> you will always be pushed to get the most out of what is currently available in terms of technology & tooling, no matter of your niche Disagreed. Maybe in large companies that work at huge scales, but below that there's plenty of business value that can be delivered with what is essentially CRUD and there's still money to be made. I'd say that if anything, the $$$ per unit of effort is much higher working for small…

> the frontend world is always changing and you're often pushing the limits in what's possible

What limits are there in the frontend world? Modern frontends could run on hardware from 20 years ago unless you are talking about games. Libraries and clients change etc, but the problems you can solve using them doesn't. 20 years ago you had to build your frontend as a desktop app if it did complex things, 10 years ago you could build that in the web. But it is still the same thing.

Re: Ask HN: Is back end dev generally easier than front end?

#99

Post by valenterry »

spoiler wrote: post #80
valenterry wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the impression that your experience is mostly limited to creating new applications, from scratch up. But in reality, most backend-work is maintaining and extending existing backends and then things become much more difficult. And that's also why backend is different from frontend: it's easy to throw a frontend away and replace it with a new one - try to do that with a backend - usually much much harder.

> it's easy to throw a frontend away and replace it with a new one - try to do that with a backend - usually much much harder. Untrue. I work at a company that's swapped out the frontend and then later the backend. I had to work on both of the projects because, and I can tell you without a any doubt in my mind that they were both equally challenging (for different reasons, but that's beyond the point). In my experien…

I'm sure that this also happens sometimes and that there are products where the frontend is the main part and requires more work than the backend.

But I still believe that it's usually easier and more valuable to recreate the frontend, and the reason is that Backend is (on average) more stable, grows over a longer time. The reason is also that the risk of replacing the backend is higher, since for a frontend, you can usually use two of them in parallel (think AB testing) without much problems. But if you do the same with the backend and the new backend writes incorrect data into the db, then the old backend also starts to behave incorrect. Hence harder to change.

Re: Ask HN: Is back end dev generally easier than front end?

#100

Post by cocoland2 »

The negatives of being on being the backend engineer ( by backend I am assuming it means gathering and santizing data as well I may add )

+ 60% work is straight forward , he 40% with respect to data cleansing (especially big-data flows) is painful. Be it other systems that feed data or field devices that produce data , there is so much to handle + A new aggregate report may throw existing designs to the trenches + Doing a wild chase for 1 abhorrent row of data and painfully digging that up. I love the slickness for UI where you make a fix and refresh to see what happens + Lot of plumbing , the frontend uses a standard transport. The Backend API may be anything between Sockets to Webscrapers whose uptimes are always under the pump

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