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Ask HN: Why are front end developers (esp React) in such high demand in 2022?

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Re: Ask HN: Why are front end developers (esp React) in such high demand in 2022?

#31

Post by everforward »

shakes_mcjunkie wrote: post #3
Ambolia wrote: post #2

I would say that Frontend development in general (HTML+CSS) and the whole javascript ecosystem are a nightmare of patches on top of other patches, and endless exceptions and small components whose sole job is to plug some hole from a different technology under it. You need endless people and bruteforce to build on it and provide more value for the end user. In comparison, Backend can turn bad sometimes, but a well de…

As a frontend dev there are definitely well designed frontends. I've seen a lot of bad backends too. It just depends on how much engineers are able to plan ahead and also keep tech debt under control.

The differentiating factor to me is that backends can typically define the runtime they want to use, while frontends are beholden to run on what the user brings.

A backend from a decade or two ago can still run fine, because it defines what it runs on. It doesn't matter if CentOS 5 deprecated a feature the apps needs, we can run it on a CentOS 4 VM (not that anyone should).

Frontend feels like it has more churn because it can't define it's own runtime. If Chrome deprecates a feature, frontends have to adapt to that. Because frontends have to adapt to their runtime changing, it becomes important to use a framework that's currently supported. You can't keep running on Java applets, because browsers won't run them anymore. You can't keep running on RandomJSFramework if it stops getting updates, because features may get deprecated in the browser.

I think it has less to do with the average frontend vs backend dev, and more to do with the environment they operate in.

Re: Ask HN: Why are front end developers (esp React) in such high demand in 2022?

#33

Post by mmsnberbar66 »

fullstackchris wrote: post #22
beingflo wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Full agree. And further I think frontend complexity has grown quite a bit lately. People love to go on about framework churn etc. when it's just a difficult domain in general. As someone who used to have snobbish opinions on frontend work, I've completely come around since diving into it. For modern fullstack applications I believe the frontend often has more complexity to it than the backend.

Of course it does. The entire concept of 'state' doesn't even exist on the backend (okay, outside the concept of a user session, but then that barely adds any complexity; perhaps you use the user's ID and that's it). Frontend you've got to think about async calls, which automatically brings three states: loading, success, and error. You may have multiple of these calls and each combination of all of them leads to som…

> The entire concept of 'state' doesn't even exist on the backend

No. Are you saying e.g. TLS is not stateful? I don't even know where to start to give you more examples. Sorry but that came off really ignorant when you're trying to sell the idea that frontend is hard.

Re: Ask HN: Why are front end developers (esp React) in such high demand in 2022?

#34

Post by nivertech »

Everyone does React because everyone else does React.

One company built an SPA in React, even though they have a handful of internal users and the app runs inside the corporate network.

There is an ultrahigh velocity of software rot in the FE/JS ecosystem.

Imagine Facebook releasing a next big WebAssembly+Rust-based framework, and now everyone will be either stuck with React, or will need to rewrite.

The market chooses the path to inflict the maximum damage/loss.

Re: Ask HN: Why are front end developers (esp React) in such high demand in 2022?

#36

Post by fullstackchris »

mmsnberbar66 wrote: post #33
fullstackchris wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it does. The entire concept of 'state' doesn't even exist on the backend (okay, outside the concept of a user session, but then that barely adds any complexity; perhaps you use the user's ID and that's it). Frontend you've got to think about async calls, which automatically brings three states: loading, success, and error. You may have multiple of these calls and each combination of all of them leads to som…

> The entire concept of 'state' doesn't even exist on the backend No. Are you saying e.g. TLS is not stateful? I don't even know where to start to give you more examples. Sorry but that came off really ignorant when you're trying to sell the idea that frontend is hard.

I'm speaking from an application level perspective (REST or GraphQL APIs and the like). Of course at deeper levels of networking there needs to be a concept of state. But the only reason I can think of somebody having to hand roll anything todo with TLS nowadays is that they are doing something very very specialized, or have gone down a very wrong path.

Though that did remind me, if you're doing websocket stuff I suppose there could be a considerable amount of 'state' to handle on the backend.

Re: Ask HN: Why are front end developers (esp React) in such high demand in 2022?

#37

Post by dirslashls »

dt2m wrote: post #7

A lot of organizations bet the farm on React ~5 years ago because it was the cool new thing. It is very likely that many of the original developers have since moved on to the next cool new thing, and now companies need maintenance work done on their (now unwieldy) codebase. Another reason: The trend today seems to be to offload most of the data processing to the client side, only using the server as a glorified datab…

Would love to see any factual references about the trend. It's in my vested interested as a founder of sqlframes.com

Re: Ask HN: Why are front end developers (esp React) in such high demand in 2022?

#38

Post by [deleted] »

pcthrowaway wrote: post #12
rozenmd wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except the cool new thing is still React, and we're all still here. Folks are building products with great UX -> Clients use these products, want the same thing in their products -> Demand for frontend increases, repeat.

React is still in, but it's definitely not the "cool new thing" now. Svelte and Solidjs seem to be the "cool new things" now on the front-end

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Why are front end developers (esp React) in such high demand in 2022?

#39

Post by arvinsim »

dt2m wrote: post #13
rozenmd wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except the cool new thing is still React, and we're all still here. Folks are building products with great UX -> Clients use these products, want the same thing in their products -> Demand for frontend increases, repeat.

There's no question that it's still highly in demand, but as a user I despise React apps. Not that there's anything wrong with the technology - well-written React with minimal dependencies can provide a great and responsive UX. In practise this rarely is the case. I have yet to use a React app that consistently respects Cmd+click as my intent to open something in a new tab, has sub-100ms draw times for any UI action,…

You are basically asking for a native OS app, which the web cannot match.

But users demand them anyway on the web so here were are.

Re: Ask HN: Why are front end developers (esp React) in such high demand in 2022?

#40

Post by shakes_mcjunkie »

everforward wrote: post #31
shakes_mcjunkie wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a frontend dev there are definitely well designed frontends. I've seen a lot of bad backends too. It just depends on how much engineers are able to plan ahead and also keep tech debt under control.

The differentiating factor to me is that backends can typically define the runtime they want to use, while frontends are beholden to run on what the user brings. A backend from a decade or two ago can still run fine, because it defines what it runs on. It doesn't matter if CentOS 5 deprecated a feature the apps needs, we can run it on a CentOS 4 VM (not that anyone should). Frontend feels like it has more churn becau…

I see you point but I have to imagine the vast majority of frontend devs are targeting Chrome which is very stable. TBH in 11 years of FE dev I've never encountered anyone complaining about Chrome deprecating a feature that wasn't explicitly experimental. Now, some frameworks or libraries might do that, or may no longer be maintained; but I doesn't BE dev deal with this too?
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