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Over-specialization is the curse of our profession

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Re: Over-specialization is the curse of our profession

#51

Post by mdonahoe »

borplk wrote: post #24

Good 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…

There is plenty of value for people who can do both. Or at least most of one and a good amount of the other.

I have become a generalist at a company that definitely has distinct frontend and backend teams. I started as backend dev but started doing frontend work too. I have found myself in great demand due to my unique role at the company.

Since I know a lot about the entire tech stack, I can act as a routing agent for product managers and other non-developers. They ask me questions, and I can give them a pretty good answer. If they need something done, I can refer them to the specialist who wrote the code that needs changed.

When I am coding small tasks, I can write both sides of an API much faster than it would take two devs to negotiate the requirements. Communication is a time sink. Rather than writing emails or tasks requests, I can just write code and be done. There is a threshold though where it is better to split the work. There is only so much I can hold in my head at once. But even then, I find I am better at communicating because I know how both sides work.

Does the project have a nasty bug that needs tracking down? The generalist can lead an investigation the whole stack, asking specialists when needed. Last week I solved what our CTO referred to as "the ninja bug" that had plagued another team for months. The root problem was on the frontend (ios client), and I pushed an instant fix by updating our server code to compensate.

Lastly, some companies have skunkworks projects with very small teams. Being able to own both sides of a task means fewer people required to do it. I have become the goto guy for whipping up prototypes. I typically work directly with our CEO to create a proof of concept as fast and cheap as possible. When things look promising, we bring on more specialized devs and I lead the project.

You may not want to be exactly 50/50, but definitely be aware of how the other side lives. And dont be afraid to ask for a role change to broaden your skill set!

Re: Over-specialization is the curse of our profession

#52

Post by 001sky »

FaceKicker wrote: post #27
bslatkin wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

relevant (figure of speech) > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipstick_on_a_pig

Re: Over-specialization is the curse of our profession

#53

Post by borlak »

borplk wrote: post #24

Good 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…

Agreed, there is simply too much to know, for someone who programs as a day job. At my previous job, I was becoming the DBA, and I actually quite loved it, as it was a fairly complicated setup w/high traffic.

At my new job as purely backend developer, I found my previous software skills rusty. A couple months later, I am a strong software developer again, but ask me a DB question and it will take me a minute to bring it all together. Sadly, the area that was once my strongest has become weaker. If I wanted to keep up on my DB skills, I'd have to be studying/reading DB on the side, which I don't have time to do considering I'm a family man.

Re: Over-specialization is the curse of our profession

#54

Post by freditup »

chubot wrote: post #49
FaceKicker wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

He was saying that the phrasing, from a back end guy, revealed exactly the lazy attitude that was described in the post. When a back end guy says, "Hey front end guy, make it look pretty" -- that's not showing much appreciation for what they actually do. Front end guys: is what you do just making things look pretty? Or maybe it's closer to understanding how people actually use a product. And designing a UI that can c…

Here's the reason I said that: "No matter what I try, I can't make it look pretty. I realize I'm such a horrible artist/designer that no matter how much effort I put in, it's always going to be an ugly mess if I do the front end. So what I appreciate most is them making it look pretty. Other aspects of the jobs I can do better, so it's not quite as important to me to have someone else doing it. Perhaps it is a "lazy" attitude, but it's not a condescending one. :)

Re: Over-specialization is the curse of our profession

#55

Post by Goronmon »

chubot wrote: post #49
FaceKicker wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

He was saying that the phrasing, from a back end guy, revealed exactly the lazy attitude that was described in the post. When a back end guy says, "Hey front end guy, make it look pretty" -- that's not showing much appreciation for what they actually do. Front end guys: is what you do just making things look pretty? Or maybe it's closer to understanding how people actually use a product. And designing a UI that can c…

It all depends on whether you take "make it look pretty" as an insult or just a simplified statement of what a front-end person does.

I, for one, read "make it look pretty" as "make it look like something people would want to use".

Re: Over-specialization is the curse of our profession

#56

Post by blackdanube »

bslatkin wrote: post #38
blackdanube wrote: post #36

That sounds totally wrong. As others have pointed out, specialization is the main ingredient in successful division of labor. Read my variant at http://shezi.posterous.com/over-specialization-is-the-curse-...

I'd say your variant doesn't work because there's a hierarchical relationship between white-collar and blue-collar workers (one is hired by the other). This is not true for frontend vs. backend engineering in my experience. They are supposedly equal peers.

Not necessarily. A guy working in the workshop of a mechanic vs. a secretary in the same shop don't share the hierarchy you outline, yet the piece still works.

In any case, it was just a cheap shot at the silly point that specialization is bad.

Re: Over-specialization is the curse of our profession

#57

Post by chubot »

freditup wrote: post #54
chubot wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was saying that the phrasing, from a back end guy, revealed exactly the lazy attitude that was described in the post. When a back end guy says, "Hey front end guy, make it look pretty" -- that's not showing much appreciation for what they actually do. Front end guys: is what you do just making things look pretty? Or maybe it's closer to understanding how people actually use a product. And designing a UI that can c…

Here's the reason I said that: "No matter what I try, I can't make it look pretty. I realize I'm such a horrible artist/designer that no matter how much effort I put in, it's always going to be an ugly mess if I do the front end. So what I appreciate most is them making it look pretty. Other aspects of the jobs I can do better, so it's not quite as important to me to have someone else doing it. Perhaps it is a "lazy"…

But that's not what front end devs do. Maybe you could say that's what designers do. Front end dev != designer.
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