And the author is also wrong, because he thinks that all software is made up of a frontend and a backend.
Unless, of course, by "our profession" he means "us, the people who can only code web apps"
Over-specialization is the curse of our profession
21–30 of 57 posts
Re: Over-specialization is the curse of our profession
#22I think everyone of us should try and specialize in at least one thing. That does not imply that you do your best to know nothing about relevant fields. For example if you are a web developer who works on Ruby on Rails and makes awesome web apps but don't like working on the front‒end, i.e HTML/CSS/JS then that is OK as long as you have some basic knowledge about those technologies and respect those who do work in that area.
Back to the specialization, I really think you should have at least one area in your chosen field where you have deep knowledge. How deep? On the above example - maybe you know internals of Rails + Rack very well. If you are on the front‒end may be you should have a thorough understanding of how browsers work, how HTML/CSS is parsed and rendered etc. I don't really have a good explanation as to why this is important but I've noticed that the really good web developers or designers tend to have at least one specialization or deep interest within their fields.
Re: Over-specialization is the curse of our profession
#23I don't see what is wrong with having interest in one area say back end, having done it most of the time during your experience and hence have more relevant material on your profile. But still being open and able to do front end when needed. However, clearly lack enough exposure or substance on paper for that. To me it is the resistance to do any thing different from previous experience that is the culprit. Not the basic classification
Re: Over-specialization is the curse of our profession
#24Good luck being a decent front-end and a decent back-end developer.
Besides their different nature. The volume and amount of knowledge is too much to be able to do both at a decent level unless you sacrifice your personal life or you are some sort of super talented nerd.
If you dedicate 24 hours a day to both, there will always be someone who will dedicate theirs to only one. You can't beat that competition and it is only going to get worse from here as the technology develops and both of these streams will become more sophisticated and require more knowledge and experience.
Yes, back in 1980s a programmer could easily do both because front-end wasn't much more than some simple html tags. But not now.
Front-end and back-end go hand in hand and it is good to familiarise yourself with which ever you don't specialise in and recognise and appreciate its importance but if you try being both you'll most probably end up being a half-arsed back-end developer and a half-arsed front-end developer.
Re: Over-specialization is the curse of our profession
#25You cannot have everybody do full stack development and devops and [insert whatever specialization you have here]. I know great programmers that got stuck in another specialty (because my company tried to create such broad specialization employees) and left, because they were only interested in a field, like backend programming or mobile. But they never said "I don't want to do sysop because it's not hot", they said "I don't want to do sysop because it's not my job".
I'm a programmer that now trains as a DBA+sysop and I like it. I saw condescending (brogrammer style "I'm way cooler than you") types in both camps, but usually from the guys that never tried to understand somebody else('s job). For my colleagues I tried to create small presentations like "this is what a DBA can do to help you and this is the way you can help them" and "what an usual programmer knows about databases" to bring the camps closer together and to understand eachother.
Re: Over-specialization is the curse of our profession
#26And the author is also wrong, because he thinks that all software is made up of a frontend and a backend. Unless, of course, by "our profession" he means "us, the people who can only code web apps"
I think it was just an over all generalization. I wrote my opinion based upon reading this article and i am not even remotely doing a web app for over 7 years. It is mostly embedded / networks / c. Still i didn't feel like he was talking about web apps only. Full stack - front vs back end are standard terms often mentioned in recruiting at all big name companies as well as startups
Re: Over-specialization is the curse of our profession
#27I disagree actually. I think having a specialization (front-end vs. back-end for example) is a good thing. It allows someone to dedicate themselves to one specific area and learn it thoroughly. When I'm doing back-end development, I love having a front-end guy who can make it look pretty - I don't want to have to use time/energy up doing that when I'm concentrating on making a secure, fast, maintainable back-end. How…
What you said: "When I'm doing back-end development, I love having a front-end guy who can make it look pretty" How that sounds to me: "When I'm done with a hard day's work, I love having a wife at home who can make me a drink" Seriously! Read what you wrote.
I don't think I understand the analogy? If two people are working on the same project and one enjoys and specializes in front-end development and the other enjoys and specializes in back-end development, and the project is roughly 50/50 front-end and back-end, why on earth should they NOT split up the project accordingly? They will both enjoy working on it more, they will get it done faster, and with better results than if they each took half the front-end and half the back-end work. Neither partner is "exploiting" the other or anything like that (as implied by your analogy); it's just in their mutual interest to divide the work in this way.
Re: Over-specialization is the curse of our profession
#28And the author is also wrong, because he thinks that all software is made up of a frontend and a backend. Unless, of course, by "our profession" he means "us, the people who can only code web apps"
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Re: Over-specialization is the curse of our profession
#29And the author is also wrong, because he thinks that all software is made up of a frontend and a backend. Unless, of course, by "our profession" he means "us, the people who can only code web apps"
I think it was just an over all generalization. I wrote my opinion based upon reading this article and i am not even remotely doing a web app for over 7 years. It is mostly embedded / networks / c. Still i didn't feel like he was talking about web apps only. Full stack - front vs back end are standard terms often mentioned in recruiting at all big name companies as well as startups
Hm hm hm. Ok.
That must be regional then. Where I'm located (the Netherlands), these terms are very much web app only. Nobody working in embedded systems would call himself a "full stack engineer". Stack? What stack? I make robots move!
Re: Over-specialization is the curse of our profession
#30And the author is also wrong, because he thinks that all software is made up of a frontend and a backend. Unless, of course, by "our profession" he means "us, the people who can only code web apps"
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Huh? I think you completely misunderstood the sentiment in my post. I'm saying that not all software as made by a group of front end engineers and a group of backend engineers - that structure is rather specific for web apps, and the occasial internet-heavy mobile app.
If you write software for cars, rockets, printers, cell phones, game consoles, or ATMs, these distinctions hardly apply. To rant about how everybody's either a frontend engineer or a backend engineer, to me, implies that the author's world consists of web apps only.