

Frontend is a separate application - andrzejkrzywda
http://andrzejonsoftware.blogspot.com/2012/06/frontend-is-separate-application.html

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kls
Developers are slowly realizing the advantage of this style of application
development. I remember around 06 having a discussion with another developer
at the company I was with at the time. He was arguing that Ajax could change
everything and I was arguing that it was just adding more layers onto an
already heavily layered system. I was thinking ASP/JSP/PHP, CSS, HTML, XML, on
and on and now AJAX on top of that and he was actually seeing that we could
thin down the stack and reduce technical debt. I remember when he started
laying it out, at some point it clicked and that was my ahha moment.

We built an app using only JS for UI logic and it was smooth, after that I
said to him, I will never touch the any of the server side stuff like JSP
again. From that day, I have built every app using JS as the front end
languadge. For a time people would look at me weird when I would advocate for
it, but now as time has gone on, the mind-shift has happened.

I still find back-end developers who are resistant, but that resistance
usually fades fast when they come to realize that a) they won't have to write
the JS and b) They get to offload all UI development to a specialized front-
end developer. That's usually when they become the biggest advocate. I cant
tell you how many back-end developers that have said to me after doing a JS UI
project, how happy they where not not have to deal with UI requirements and be
able to focus on the business logic.

~~~
andrzejkrzywda
"I still find back-end developers who are resistant"

"(...) how happy they where not not have to deal with UI requirements and be
able to focus on the business logic."

I've noticed the same, but I still don't understand why is that.

I'm curious why so many backend developers are not happy with working on the
frontend part?

~~~
allardschip
Maybe because getting things pixel perfect across browsers can be hard and is
an art in itself?

~~~
kls
Right, business logic and UI are distinct creative tasks. While one may enjoy
both not everyone does, also requirements based design for business logic is a
different mental processes than user story based flows for UI. One is very
concrete and the other is known to be pretty mushy until the user actually
touches it and sees how it responds. There are developers who do not like to
iterate through fuzzy details and prefer very concrete data contracts. So they
are very happy to stay on the other side of the REST contract. The good part
is once they get a glimpse of the new world, they realize how much better it
is for all parties involved. It's one of the few evolutions I have seen in the
tech world where the grass truly is greener, on the other side, for all
parties.

------
BerislavLopac
I have been claiming this for a long time:
[http://berislav.lopac.net/post/4726275775/of-course-web-
deve...](http://berislav.lopac.net/post/4726275775/of-course-web-development-
is-broken)

