

Front-end is a waiter, back-end is a chef - legierski
http://blog.self.li/post/27326311797/front-end-waiter-back-end-chef

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netcan
I wonder how all the complications might be explained within this analogy.

\- At this restaurant the waiter cracks the eggs & mixes up the cesar dressing
at the table.

\- This is a new kind of a restaurant. They cook all the food in front of you
on a hot plate and you interact directly with the chef. There are still
waiters getting drinks and clearing plates but they don't talk to diners much
so they are "officially under" the kitchen staff. Most customer interaction is
done by the chef. Originally there was no back end but eventually they decided
they still need one for washing dishes and cutting the ingredients into pieces
that can easily be handled by a front-end chef. Since all the chefs are out
front, the head waiter is in charge of the "not-a-kitchen."

\- Katie is the hostess but she also makes the spicy pepper sauce because its
her recipe. The head chef traditionally serves the steak supreme when anyone
orders it unless when Harry's on. He just doesn't want to do it.

\- This place now has 9 locations. Hot food is assembled and plated by cooks.
Salads and deserts are plated by the waiters. All the actual cooking, slicing
and chopping takes place in a central kitchen and gets delivered 3 times a
day. The kitchen is open so "Everyone Is Front End (patent pending)" and
everyone where's the same T shirt.

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tgrass
No analogy is perfect. This one works well. I would revise the chef to the
sous chef though. Unless the writer intended to set the back end dev in
authority over the front end. Additionally, the chef designs the aesthetics of
any dish. He is the creative force behind the public facing product.

In fine dining, the waiter's job is to turn the table in a set period of time
without the guest feeling rushed. The waiter should know a great back story to
every dish that leaves the guest feeling like they just read a.collection of
short stories. The waiter should know how different flavors interact and be
able to build and defend a three course meal by its taste. And the waiter
should have absolute respect for the guest, knowing all guests are different.

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moondowner
I don't like the split between front and back end development. There are
always some stuff that have to be done and are somewhere in between front and
back-end, which developer will get to do it?

Yes, there are differences definitely. Some don't like mingling with jQuery
and other JS stuff. Some don't like Java or Python or whatever on the back-end
is used.

But some people do the whole thing, code from front-end to back-end and vice
versa. They call themselves full stack developers.

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BasDirks
Aha. I did not know waiters arranged the food on the plate and added all the
dressing and herbs.

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legierski
waiters ask you what drink you want with your food and interact with you from
the beginning until the end. it's not only about food, is it?

~~~
herval
In that case, they're pretty much the sales/support team... Unlike front/back-
end, who actually build the "cake"

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icisted
I'm a front-end developer, I understand peoples comments about this not
showing the things we do.

BUT for everyday people this gives them an idea that backend is behind the
scenes, and that frontend is the stuff they see.

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rjv
To complete this analogy, waiters also provide you with knives, forks, napkins
and dishes. These are the tools that make it a lot easier (and cleaner) to
consume what the chef makes.

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DrJ
for a second there, I thought someone made a tool for frontend deployment on
top of backend deployment using opscode's chef.

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rssems
i don't agree with you, front-end is a what you see, back end is a things what
make you works what you see. isn't it?

