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We replaced our React front end with Go and WebAssembly

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Re: We replaced our React front end with Go and WebAssembly

#81

Post by mattbaker »

runarberg wrote: post #66
Aeolun wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Almost never have a met a person who was equally good at both. Doesn’t that say more around your surroundings? I’ve definitely met people that were equally competent at both (and more competent than most). A lot of things that are important on the front-end are equally important on the back-end and vice versa. Lets add databases and infra while we are at it. The thing is, you need an actually senior engineer for th…

These are totally different skill sets with very different tool chains. Front and backand are as dissimilar as carpentry and cabinetry, or geography and geology, or tailoring and fashion design. On the frontend you need to deliver excellent user experience, deliver accessibility, localization, cater to different—sometimes legacy—browsers. Even if you have a graphic designer, you still need to work with your designers…

They’re definitely not totally different, it’s still programming. I’m competent in both and have occupied both roles in my career, but more importantly I’ve worked with people much better than me in both areas :) They were more similar than they were different.

I do agree with you that there are skills specific to each layer of the stack and they don’t all cross apply. You definitely don’t get to be good at backend and then magically be a strong frontend engineer! But I think a good backend engineer has a bright future as a good frontend engineer and vice versa, should they choose to pursue a different branch of our discipline.

Re: We replaced our React front end with Go and WebAssembly

#82

Post by steve_taylor »

hansonkd wrote: post #48
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #14

Will just comment that I think there is huge value on having all pieces (front end/back end/apps) on the same language if at all possible, especially for small teams. I've gone the other direction, which is basically "Typescript everywhere", or at least as much as possible, i.e. React on the front end, NodeJS on the backend, and Capacitor for apps (note Capacitor may not be appropriate for all types of apps but in ou…

Hard disagree. Just as I disagree about "full stack" developers. People that call themselves "full stack"are a backend developer that dabbles in frontend or a front end developer that can dabble on the backend. Almost never have a met a person who was equally good at both. Just the same Languages have their strengths. Using a backend language to write your frontend is more or less a waste of developer resources. Chan…

When you have a team of full-stackers with some front-end focused, some back-end, and some in the middle, with the right team culture these people can learn from each other and grow into well-rounded full-stack devs.

And given the current market, companies can be more selective.

Re: We replaced our React front end with Go and WebAssembly

#83

Post by [deleted] »

hansonkd wrote: post #70
tobinfekkes wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Almost never have a met a person who was equally good at both. I am literally that person. It's a good thing we've never met, or you wouldn't be able to say that anymore! Edit: Sorry for sharing my professional responsibilities, where some of my clients pay me for front-end work, some for back-end work, and some for both. I forgot that people on the internet that have never met me know what I do better than I do, a…

perhaps you are the exception that proves the rule :shrug: or perhaps its hard to objectively measure one's owns abilities. which is the most common thing i have seen from "full stack" interviewees.

[deleted]

Re: We replaced our React front end with Go and WebAssembly

#85

Post by [deleted] »

Aeolun wrote: post #53
hansonkd wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hard disagree. Just as I disagree about "full stack" developers. People that call themselves "full stack"are a backend developer that dabbles in frontend or a front end developer that can dabble on the backend. Almost never have a met a person who was equally good at both. Just the same Languages have their strengths. Using a backend language to write your frontend is more or less a waste of developer resources. Chan…

> Almost never have a met a person who was equally good at both. Doesn’t that say more around your surroundings? I’ve definitely met people that were equally competent at both (and more competent than most). A lot of things that are important on the front-end are equally important on the back-end and vice versa. Lets add databases and infra while we are at it. The thing is, you need an actually senior engineer for th…

[deleted]

Re: We replaced our React front end with Go and WebAssembly

#86

Post by emseetech »

xmprt wrote: post #74
Aeolun wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Almost never have a met a person who was equally good at both. Doesn’t that say more around your surroundings? I’ve definitely met people that were equally competent at both (and more competent than most). A lot of things that are important on the front-end are equally important on the back-end and vice versa. Lets add databases and infra while we are at it. The thing is, you need an actually senior engineer for th…

I think a lot of frontend engineers can do backend work and vice versa, but it takes a lot to be very good at both. It's not impossible but also I think it's rare that a backend engineer would voluntarily decide to also become a frontend expert instead of leveling up their backend skills. Fullstack in my experience arises out of a need by companies and startups to cut costs by having a single engineer do both.

A true fullstack developer is a jack of all trades.

The adage being "A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one."

A fullstack developer is not two developers in one. A dedicated backend or frontend dev will always overperform a fullstack dev in their side of the stack.

But while a good fullstack dev is not useful to a more mature company, they are invaluable to a startup, early stage company or greenfield project where building fast, lean and "good enough" is the target.

Re: We replaced our React front end with Go and WebAssembly

#87

Post by broken_broken_ »

braindeadly wrote: post #31

From the webpage: "Go WASM is slow at parsing large amounts of JSON, which led to dramatic architecture changes and the creation of a “smart backend” for incremental data loading over WebSockets, using Go's rarely-used encoding/gob format." From https://pkg.go.dev/encoding/gob "This package is not designed to be hardened against adversarial inputs, and is outside the scope of https://go.dev/security/policy . In parti…

At work the Go backend was also using gob encoding in one case to store some values in the database. After some profiling, I noticed it was the top allocation part of the whole app. It was also showing on the CPU performance profiles. Finally some very light “fuzzing” (just a case were the wrong value was written to the database, and reading it back crashed the app) made me decide to rip it out and use JSON instead. Instantly, this section of the code disappeared from all profiles. I honestly do not understand why this format exists in the Go standard library and I would never use it. There are plenty other formats available…and a decoder should never crash in the face of invalid data!

Re: We replaced our React front end with Go and WebAssembly

#88

Post by nesarkvechnep »

tobinfekkes wrote: post #60
hansonkd wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hard disagree. Just as I disagree about "full stack" developers. People that call themselves "full stack"are a backend developer that dabbles in frontend or a front end developer that can dabble on the backend. Almost never have a met a person who was equally good at both. Just the same Languages have their strengths. Using a backend language to write your frontend is more or less a waste of developer resources. Chan…

> Almost never have a met a person who was equally good at both. I am literally that person. It's a good thing we've never met, or you wouldn't be able to say that anymore! Edit: Sorry for sharing my professional responsibilities, where some of my clients pay me for front-end work, some for back-end work, and some for both. I forgot that people on the internet that have never met me know what I do better than I do, a…

Or, you just think you’re literally that person. No offence, I’ve met my fair share of developers who are full of themselves but are barely tolerable at best.

Re: We replaced our React front end with Go and WebAssembly

#89

Post by re-thc »

runarberg wrote: post #66
Aeolun wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Almost never have a met a person who was equally good at both. Doesn’t that say more around your surroundings? I’ve definitely met people that were equally competent at both (and more competent than most). A lot of things that are important on the front-end are equally important on the back-end and vice versa. Lets add databases and infra while we are at it. The thing is, you need an actually senior engineer for th…

These are totally different skill sets with very different tool chains. Front and backand are as dissimilar as carpentry and cabinetry, or geography and geology, or tailoring and fashion design. On the frontend you need to deliver excellent user experience, deliver accessibility, localization, cater to different—sometimes legacy—browsers. Even if you have a graphic designer, you still need to work with your designers…

> On the backend (I think) you need to deliver optimization, and speed, you need to work within confines of your infrastructure

I hope the same applies for frontend. Let's not have the 20MB bundles (definitely exists) and seconds before a page loads etc.

> which I don‘t even know about

Security!

Re: We replaced our React front end with Go and WebAssembly

#90

Post by hansonkd »

leetrout wrote: post #77
hansonkd wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So what? Both of these developers would be able to ship a typical feature in a typical web product by themselves, without back-and-forth with their counterpart all the time, and that's a huge productivity boost. Its a short term productivity boost sacrificing for long term maintainability and future productivity. I would take 1 backend engineer + 1 frontend engineer over 3-4 "fullstack engineers" any day of the wee…

What is the sacrifice, specifically?

Same reason you hire an architect, electricians, carpenters and plumbers to build a house instead of getting an equal number of handymen and telling them to get at it.

Thats not to say a layperson can't build a house, but having experience and training about a specific domain can make later modifications and updates significantly easier.

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