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Ask HN: Why did back-end development explode in complexity?

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Re: Ask HN: Why did back-end development explode in complexity?

#71

Post by gardenhedge »

pluc wrote: post #22
javajosh wrote: post #19

The scope of back-end development has grown considerably. In fact, it's precisely "one level of indirection" bigger: "commit is the new save", "push is the new commit", and "repo is the new module". Plus, "full-stack development" now includes containers and orchestration! Which is, of course, insane: distributed systems are, in general, not well understood. Expecting people to understand front-end, back-end, and then…

I have never met a full-stack developer that is comfortable with the full stack. I am also pretty sure full-stack was coined by recruiters and marketing folks to create a technical middle class.

Really? In how many years experience?

I've met many full stack devs who are comfortable from DB (db design and stored procedures, sql) - backend code (java, spring framework) backend services (consuming first party and third party APIs) - frontend code (javascript, typescript, jquery, angular, react) - frontend services (Google analytics, GTM, etc. )

Edit: forgot to add in CI, CD, deployment platform skills, server less functions etc

Re: Ask HN: Why did back-end development explode in complexity?

#72

Post by jesuscript »

gardenhedge wrote: post #70
jesuscript wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The frontend answer to complexity had to do with young/new devs fomo’ing into resume driven development and augmenting their growing identity/ego as a developer. But this Java shit, that has to all come from enterprise solutions right? I can’t imagine there were tons of influencer-like blog posts that JavaScript had. What hell hole did those Java ideas even come from? Blah. One way or another, people manage to fuck e…

Does SimpleBeanFactoryAwareAspectInstanceFactory not simply spring to your mind when you're coding solutions? /s

Can you explain what that is or what’s it’s trying to do?

Re: Ask HN: Why did back-end development explode in complexity?

#75

Post by jacquesm »

chinabot wrote: post #38
pluc wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never met a full-stack developer that is comfortable with the full stack. I am also pretty sure full-stack was coined by recruiters and marketing folks to create a technical middle class.

I dont even have a clue what a full-stack even means these days, its just a resume wank-word somewhere between "cloud" and "framework"

It means that you're supposed to be equally comfortable with VLSI design as you are with Photoshop and everything in between.

Re: Ask HN: Why did back-end development explode in complexity?

#76

Post by isbvhodnvemrwvn »

croo wrote: post #10
potamic wrote: post #8

Oh you sweet child, you haven't seen complexity until you have deployed J2EE services generated using WSDL, running in an OSGi container, interfaced with EJBs packaged using Ant and deployed into GlassFish, integrated with IIS running on a Windows Server. Try finding a starter kit for that.

Right? We already over the explosion. Backend development is not complex, it's mature. With spring boot + initializer + bean based configuration, REST interfaces everywhere, maven and gradle are both great what's not to like?

Can you tell me exactly what kind of beans you have in your simple spring boot app, and how request processing works step by step?

Re: Ask HN: Why did back-end development explode in complexity?

#77

Post by otabdeveloper4 »

halfmatthalfcat wrote: post #57
otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personal rant: the solution to fixing a broken k8s installation made by a previous team in an attempt at some sort "enterprisey" lock-in is, apparently, wiping the clusters and creating a new k8s from scratch. This isn't the future I wanted, let's solve these problems in some other way. K8s seems to be the second-system effect in all the worst ways.

Sounds like an unfortunate edge case that shouldn't detract from all the good things Kubernetes affords.

I haven't seen any good things brought by Kubernetes.

Re: Ask HN: Why did back-end development explode in complexity?

#78

Post by pluc »

gardenhedge wrote: post #71
pluc wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never met a full-stack developer that is comfortable with the full stack. I am also pretty sure full-stack was coined by recruiters and marketing folks to create a technical middle class.

Really? In how many years experience? I've met many full stack devs who are comfortable from DB (db design and stored procedures, sql) - backend code (java, spring framework) backend services (consuming first party and third party APIs) - frontend code (javascript, typescript, jquery, angular, react) - frontend services (Google analytics, GTM, etc. ) Edit: forgot to add in CI, CD, deployment platform skills, server l…

The only time I met half competent full-stack devs was when the stack was limited to JavaScript on front and back ends along with API calls to serverless functions (eg Cognito) for "more complex" things. Never met one that could quit vim or design a database with anything other than varchars.

That is not full-stack, that is knowing a syntax that happens to have ended at both ends of the stack.

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