
Ask HN: When did the terms Front-End, Back-End, and Full-Stack become prevalent? - ncarlson
I&#x27;ve always enjoyed meeting other software developers. When meeting someone new, I usually ask &quot;what kind of software do you work on&quot;. I&#x27;ve asked and been asked this question countless times.<p>Recently however, I&#x27;ve had several exchanges like the following:<p><pre><code>  X: So, you&#x27;re a software developer too?
  Me: Yeah!
  X: Front-end or back-end?
  Me: Sorry?
  X: Ah! full-stack.
  Me: Not exactly. These days I mostly work on machine vision software.
  X: Oh. So you write systems code?
  Me: Yes. ...no! Wait! All of the above?
</code></pre>
I take issue with being ask, especially by recruiters, &quot;are you front end, back end, or full stack&quot;. This question seems presumptuous. It seems rather self-limiting to classify one&#x27;s self in such a way. Are these classifications a recent phenomena? Perhaps there&#x27;s a better way to interpret and respond to such questions. Any thoughts?<p>Thanks for the feedback.
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greenyoda
I seem to remember that people were already using "front-end" and "back-end"
in the 1980s when "client/server" computing was the big trend of the times.
The front-end clients were GUI applications running on PCs and the back-end
servers were mainframes or minicomputers. Some programmers worked on both,
some programmers specialized on one or the other. Just like today.

The use of "front-end" in computing probably originated from its much earlier
usage to mean the front part of some machine or vehicle, e.g., front-end
loader, front-end alignment, etc.

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ncarlson
These Ask HN's can really be a crap shoot.

    
    
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