Why people call themselves "fullstack developer" if they only know PHP and JavaScript?

For the same reason they call themselves "experts", because they can. But in the end it's the experience and knowledge that gets jobs, otherwise my application with the title "lord"* would be way more successful.

*yes, you can buy that title

Lol, node JS backend maybe.. ?... maybe...

@hexc a weak "maybe", that's one two "i dont know where to place them"-languages. Notice the missing db in this list, you can't be a true fullstack-dev if you don't have experience in several programming-languages/databases/technologies.

This is like a concerned mother who blogs about herbs and alternative medicine and calls herself an "expert"

@ebourgess IMO, they must know about how a server works and how a client application interacts with it. I learned Python, JS (NodeJS included), PHP, SQL, C++ and ASM and I don't think that I'm a full stack developer because I don't know how all this languages, compilers and interpreters works together. Also, I'm in the hardware side of the thing (as electronic engineer).

I don't call myself a full stack developer even though my knowledge is in frontend and backend both. Thing is I have no interest in frontend I prefer to be on Backend side

Because both lying and imagination are things.

My current project involves writing a full front end plus creating a java tomcat server back-end that also ties into a db yet my db skills are minimal, but we have a db guy that I work with that creates all the queries etc, I just implement them. I wonder if I'm considered full stack even know I don't really do the db stuff... But I've designed the full backend server / security framework.🤔

They love buzzwords

"I am also a fullstack developer, I know HTML and CSS" - somebody at my work a few days ago

I've been called that because I know both a (some) front- and back-end technologies.
I'm also aware of multiple desktop and server operating systems to a certain degree.

I tend to always come up with a viable solution.

Sure hope that title doesn't hit me in the back in the long run.

@AlexDeLarge Totally agree. There are a lot of people out there calling them engineer without the real knowledge that a engineer must have. An example in the electronic world is people that call themselves "electronic engineer" and they only know how to plug modules into an Arduino board and write a few lines. I mostly work freelance fixing the issues that these "electronic engineers" do.