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A Proposal: Renaming Backend/Frontend to Application/UI Developers

theothersideofcode.com

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Re: A Proposal: Renaming Backend/Frontend to Application/UI Developers

#71

Post by tocomment »

stcredzero wrote: post #69
tocomment wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's still a lot of coding for that. I'm thinking a drop-in app that looks at a database and creates list and record level editors for each table automatically. Users could still customize it from there but they'd have a good start.

I think it's a cool idea. So have lots of others over the decades. (From the 70's I'd bet.) In a way, RoR is just the latest wrinkle in this quest. If you can do it, you might well have something. (BTW, are you familiar with SQLAlchemy?) If you are serious, I invented a graphical interface for dynamically exploring reporting information from such an app.

The SQLAlchemy thing sounds cool. I was thinking more about CRUD than reporting but that might be a useful product too.

The only issue with the universal CRUD tool is I have no idea how to market it?

Re: A Proposal: Renaming Backend/Frontend to Application/UI Developers

#72

Post by [deleted] »

stcredzero wrote: post #69
tocomment wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's still a lot of coding for that. I'm thinking a drop-in app that looks at a database and creates list and record level editors for each table automatically. Users could still customize it from there but they'd have a good start.

I think it's a cool idea. So have lots of others over the decades. (From the 70's I'd bet.) In a way, RoR is just the latest wrinkle in this quest. If you can do it, you might well have something. (BTW, are you familiar with SQLAlchemy?) If you are serious, I invented a graphical interface for dynamically exploring reporting information from such an app.

[deleted]

Re: A Proposal: Renaming Backend/Frontend to Application/UI Developers

#73

Post by greghinch »

mnicole wrote: post #70
greghinch wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would take a similar stance but say that anyone who has the title "UI Desginer" or "Web Designer" should have to know HTML/CSS . If you are designing UIs for the web, HTML and CSS are your medium, Photoshop not, that is just where you formulate your ideas.

I absolutely agree with you there; but people have taken unkindly to my saying so :)

I think (hope) we are in a transitional period. There is an "old guard" in the design crowd who came up in the era where web and print design were still pretty mixed, and so the idea of knowing code seems unfathomable. I know and have worked with designers who, while I know they are perfectly capable of learning HTML/CSS, just put up a wall when you try and talk to them about code of any kind. It's a shame, and I see the trend changing in younger folks, so hopefully that continues and companies will adjust their orgs appropriately.

I certainly know if/when this project I'm on gets some legs and money behind it and we are hiring, the designers I hire will be writing HTML/CSS ;)

Re: A Proposal: Renaming Backend/Frontend to Application/UI Developers

#74

Post by stcredzero »

tocomment wrote: post #71
stcredzero wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's a cool idea. So have lots of others over the decades. (From the 70's I'd bet.) In a way, RoR is just the latest wrinkle in this quest. If you can do it, you might well have something. (BTW, are you familiar with SQLAlchemy?) If you are serious, I invented a graphical interface for dynamically exploring reporting information from such an app.

The SQLAlchemy thing sounds cool. I was thinking more about CRUD than reporting but that might be a useful product too. The only issue with the universal CRUD tool is I have no idea how to market it?

You can use the ORM infrastructure that enables CRUD to also produce dynamic reporting.

> The only issue with the universal CRUD tool is I have no idea how to market it?

The dynamic reporting thing can be sexy. It would be a great way to sell such a tool. It's like pivot tables, but entirely graphical. It was based on a Smalltalk web plugin when I wrote it. I was going revive this project and make it an iPad app.

Re: A Proposal: Renaming Backend/Frontend to Application/UI Developers

#75

Post by dreamfactory »

tocomment wrote: post #65
stcredzero wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RoR

There's still a lot of coding for that. I'm thinking a drop-in app that looks at a database and creates list and record level editors for each table automatically. Users could still customize it from there but they'd have a good start.

The trouble with reflecting your UI from your physical schema is that it is a horribly leaky abstraction with very close coupling.

An extreme DWTF-style example I've seen was a 'CMS' in this style. The CMS was clearly modelled on phpMyAdmin - if you wanted to create a new content type, create a new table and it would be right there in the UI. In this CMS, news articles were the main content type - and they could be linked to other news articles and other content types in the system such as celebrities and events, which was implemented as a simple drop-down for each referenced item when you were adding or editing an article. However, this drop-down for selecting referenced entities was of course reused everywhere - meaning that you had a global setting on whether the items were ordered in alphabetical or most recent.

(Obviously you could code around this particular case, but it illustrates a general problem with the approach. And god forbid you should ever want multiple pluggable storage engines or service-based data sources.)

Re: A Proposal: Renaming Backend/Frontend to Application/UI Developers

#76

Post by kyllo »

codegeek wrote: post #27
michaelochurch wrote: post #16

Zed Shaw already solved this problem: http://programming-motherfucker.com . What made programming great (before the Douchebag Invasion came in and we were divided into these stupid warring camps) is now what makes "data science" attractive: the generalist flair and the ability to pick your projects and move around the economy by your own sail. By the way, I personally hate the term "software engineer", at least as co…

"If you answer to managers.." I know you usually have good comments on HN, but is it just me or you really have something against "management". Anyway, the fact is that everyone answers to someone in some ways when it comes to money which we need to make to survive in this world unless you have family inheritance. Having said that, I am not saying that managers are necessarily the best thing in this world but i don't…

So are you saying that code quality is not critical elsewhere ? I agree in general that many companies have shitty code but there are many places which actually do care about code quality and code reviews are actually important.

He's saying safety-critical. Like NASA software. As in, if the code hits an NPE or array out-of-bounds or int overflow, people die. They actually use formal methods which is an exhaustive testing of every possible state the program could possibly enter.

We don't do this for business applications because it's extraordinarily expensive--can cost $100's per LoC.

And yeah, I think the several times daily I see "Microsoft Excel has encountered a problem and needs to close" is evidence that most major software shops have very poor quality control.

Re: A Proposal: Renaming Backend/Frontend to Application/UI Developers

#77

Post by girvo »

hispanic wrote: post #22
girvo wrote: post #15

Eh. I just say "developer". I don't just work on back-end stuff; I don't just work on web stuff either. Nowadays you end up being "full-stack" (or "jack-of-all-trades-master-of-one-facet") for the most part, at least here in Brisbane.

Likewise, although I prefer "software developer", since "developer" connotes land and real estate development in many people's minds.

Yeah, I like and agree with that. Doesn't help that my parents are real estate and commercial developers :P
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