There was a time when backend engineers used to make fun of frontenders and tell them 'you arent a real software engineer', nowadays frontend is getting so complex and cool that even backenders are now starting to learn frontend. I am so happy that because of new tech and frameworks frontend has gained such a massive respect.

Still not a real software engineering but an application of a yet another overcomplicated framework with little to no "engineering" involved

I respect frontend less since it’s become a convoluted mess by intention.

I've never been that condescending but also always able to build user interfaces. It's not because it's "cool" but because it's handy to know about multiple aspects. So front ender I advice you to take to your backend people not to convince how cool it is but to understand eachother and build better things.

Bit dramatic?

I think the complexity in frontend dev is not a good sign, rather an confirmation of how fucked up it has become.

'You are not a real software engineer'.

Lil timmy, the times when a job had a clear meaning and was exactly defined are over. Come back to reality please and do your job.

There is an ever increasing demand for rich user interfaces with more and more types of events that need to be handled. Frameworks are trying to adapt to that complexity and as a result are criticized for being "convoluted".
But I can’t imagine how much more convoluted things would be without the help of frontend frameworks

Frontend is a clusterfuck, if anything I wish it could be decrapified. But it's shit built on top of trash built on top of garbage on top on corpses. And now we have to out up with it, adding more and more to this mountain of manure that has been clipped and duct taped together into a somehow usable stack. And knowing how much of the world's infrastructure is built with this abomination is terrifying.

uhuh, cope

@IntrusionCM hey man sorry if i offended you or something

@black-kite yeah man react with npm/yarn packages makes it really easy to implement features, i cant imagine doing all this with plain javascript

@ars1 i kinda like working with react and react native, debugging is sometimes a headache but other than that, its fun.

@svartgulag Lol, no.

Hard to offend me, mood is just shitty.

I just don't get the pissing contest of some people - and this reads like the typical pissing contest.

Thus, not against you, rather against the pissing contest...

Except for making everyone angry and wasting precious time, it doesn't result in anything.

Lil story I told my interns everytime: Most working contracts, in some countries even law, mandates that an employee "must fulfill every task ordered, capability given".

As such, I could order them to mop the floors If I wanted to... Would be perfectly fine.

@IntrusionCM i was just speaking against those backend guys who talk badly with the frontenders even though the frontender is working hard with a lot of technologies and getting way better pay than the backend engineer and also overall doing a good work. My post was against these type of backend guys who think that the work which they do is the best and the frontenders' job sucks. Thats not how it should be, engineers should work together. not all backend guys are like that but some of them are. There are rotten apples everywhere.

@IntrusionCM and i have never heard of any managers ordering the interns to do any non tech work haha, like mopping the floors and stuff , atleast not in india :p

@black-kite the problem here is that the paradigm that one must use a pile of manure in the frontend is taken as gospel. There are much less convoluted ways to craft modern frontends that do away with garbagescript entirely.

@black-kite Actually, there is a demand for simpler websites that don't guzzle through 2MB of JS trash, drain your battery in no time and also contribute to the ever increasing energy footprint of the internet just because web devs are caught in a mastubatory candy store.

The current frontend development trend is crazy, and sucks. Each browser tab hogs 600 MB RAM of mine. I am pretty sure it would be less than 50 MB if they simply show hyperlinks and let user perform POST and GET like how it was supposed to.

Frontend is diverse and perhaps we all have to choose only one or two framework to learn and keep on the trend

@svartgulag

My comment about the pissing contest was that I'm mad at - in your post - the backend guys for starting a pissing contest.

Had nothing to do with you at all.

The moral of the intern story is -/ was that _no_ employee should start a pissing contest cause it could end badly.

Meaning - in general, not against you, but rather the backend guys in your post - no one should belittle someone else's work.

Especially since terms like "backend engineer", "software engineer", "frontend dev", "full stack bla XY porno dev" are undefined terms.

There is no definition for these terms. They shouldn't even exist in my opinion, as the whole reason why some people are underpaid is that it's an ingenious trick to _explicitly_ use these terms to have an undefined definition to rise or lower the pay grade as the employer sees fit.

(Again nothing to do with you, but I wanna point out how stupid it is to belittle one based on a word with no definition at all).

Hope this clears it up.

I'm more making ridiculous fun of the small minded backend guy.

TLDR:
Don't be proud of your job titles, be proud of your work. Most job titles are literally just bullshit terms with an undefined value to better exploit your arses.

@Fast-Nop I’m all for simplicity. But we’re lacking nuance here when saying that everything can be kept simple. We just know that’s not how things usually go. In fact simplicity often comes at a heavy price in terms of ressource usage; and the so called convoluted solutions often exist to minimize that footprint

@black-kite Actually, it's the opposite: convoluted solutions came in to handle the needlessly complicated and resource hungry stuff.

You know something has gone seriously wrong when you need 2MB plus dozens of database queries plus caching plugins to essentially deliver a 1kB blog post.

Nobody finds it cool to fight the complexity and figure out which of the 20 dependencies has the wrong version number.

Frontend is a 4D house of cards but half the cards are rotten shit because they're 30 years old and were designed for a different purpose, and people refuse to move on & replace them so we have to learn it even if it feels like walking through a pool of Lego.

@IntrusionCM hey man got it :)

@deadlyRants hehe tell me about it, for running a new project assigned to me , i had to downgrade my node version to 14 point something. Haha, its a nightmare especially in case of react native. React projects doesnt give me so many errors but RN project errors eff my brains out :p

@IntrusionCM mark my words bro in a few years we will surely have someone with the title 'porn dev' :p haha

Just to add some fuel here cause momma is grumpy.

What is frontend?

Putting together HTML + CSS?

Having an understanding of psychological influence of text / colors etc. and their composition?

Knowing HTTP / HTTP 2 / HTTP 3 and being able to optimize generation and delivery of JS based on the knowledge?

In depth knowledge of one framework (if yes, what happens if framework is dead?)

Knowing all kinds of JS frameworks, and HTML and CSS, but no knowledge of protocols? (aka I can make it shiny but someone else has to figure out how to deliver it)?

Knowing all the above plus basic knowledge of databases?

There is no frontend at all.

There are dozens of possible skill combinations that one can have, but it is highly unlikely one can fulfill all.

I reread the week an in depth guide on HTTP / 2.... I think I read this article every year once or twice cause I really forget everything about HTTP / 2.

Just because there are dozens of other topics stuck in my brain that are more important.

Yet I think it's important to know and to refresh it before going into a meeting and or discussing things, because without it I'd have to say yes to everything cause I don't know shit about it.

It is _hard_ to make things right nowadays if you have a full blown TypeScript / JS framework / Noodle Kaboodle machine which requires a lot of in depth knowledge - and (!) - hard work to get it to a point where it's not "we deliver 20 MB of JS / CSS, but it's fine it's compressed" bullshit.

I wouldn't trust one person with this job at all. Because there are several very different topics at hand which need to work together, otherwise it suffers.

When HTTP server stack isn't fine tuned, latency will suck / connections dropped. If the database looks like a dumpster fire, it doesn't matter if the frontend is shiny. If the frontend takes 10 seconds plus to load because no one cared, it doesn't matter if it looks good.
If design is giving you seizures, nothing helps.
It must work together.

@100110111 oh yeah? GitHub link to an example?