Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What is a Full Stack developer? (2012)

laurencegellert.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 124 posts

Re: What is a Full Stack developer? (2012)

#22

Post by lifeisstillgood »

moconnor wrote: post #14

The first few times I heard the term "full stack" developer it meant somebody who could understand what's going on at all levels of the call stack. That means from the kernel through C libraries, web server / JIT / high-level server langauge, through network layer, through browser implementation, javascript JIT, javascript / CSS / HTML interpretation and layout and so on. Has this turned into "I can does the servers…

I have only heard it in the "servers and browsers" context

Re: What is a Full Stack developer? (2012)

#23

Post by Corrado »

I think this might be a pointer to older engineers. Let's face it, Full Stack developers are rare; 17 year old Full Stack developers are unicorns. Older engineers (worth their salt) have been around the block a few times and have probably encountered the problem you're having before.

So, don't ditch that 45 year old guy in the corner. He/She's probably the closest thing to a Full Stack developer you're going to find.

Re: What is a Full Stack developer? (2012)

#24

Post by bhaak »

Gepsens wrote: post #10

So a Full Stack developer is just someone who likes to work in various fields of Software Engineering and has a quick and broad understanding of all kinds of protocols, technologies and design methodologies, plus some amount of creativity ? I don't understand why any Engineer would want their job to be any other way. Moreover, it's not like you can't be full stack anymore after you become an expert in some technology…

Some people have problems keeping the conceptual differences between different fields apart.

So if they become experts in one domain, it hurts their expertise in other domains as the newly acquired knowledge "swaps over" and "pollutes" the others.

This is contrary to my own experience but if that's how they feel ...

Re: What is a Full Stack developer? (2012)

#27

Post by hgh »

Corrado wrote: post #23

I think this might be a pointer to older engineers. Let's face it, Full Stack developers are rare; 17 year old Full Stack developers are unicorns. Older engineers (worth their salt) have been around the block a few times and have probably encountered the problem you're having before. So, don't ditch that 45 year old guy in the corner. He/She's probably the closest thing to a Full Stack developer you're going to find.

True - often "full stack developer" is synonymous with dilettante

Re: What is a Full Stack developer? (2012)

#28

Post by limmeau »

jacalata wrote: post #16
limmeau wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't claim that "Full stack developer" has been used before.

I'm not sure what you're saying. You think this term was made up by HN? Or is brand new? I can find references on the web dating from 2008 without even trying.

I'm not claiming any prior use of "Full stack developer"(TM) (haven't researched that), just that HN discussions often have a web-technology bias, where "designer" implicitly means "web designer", "low-level" means "in a VM inside a browser running on an OS running on a processor", etc.
Post reply on HN