Frontend vs Backend vs Fullstack Web Development - What should you learn?

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[JohnWeland]

Man, I am finding more and more companies wanting "front-end developers" that actually do "full-stack" it's tough because many of them don't understand the separation of duties.

[BangMaster]

I just graduated with a degree in Comp Sci, and i've been job hunting for the past 4 weeks, what annoys me is the crazy requirements.
Even just for Entry Level positions, many companies want 3 or 5 year experience, they want you to be an expert at shit tons of languages, be an expert full stack developer, and then have great communication and verbal skills, and just ridiculous requirements for a recent graduate.
No one in their right mind can ever learn that many languages and be proficient at all of them,
and i've figured out that most companies do not want to train anymore, they are all focused on cutting labor costs.
Even for associate or entry level positions, they want people who have as much experience as a 5 years working in the industry. Which is completely illogical, no wonder millions of Programming positions are going unfilled in the US,
because those who are really skilled programmers will go work for Google, Apple, Microsoft, etc..,
while the rest of us mediocre programmers will have to work for smaller companies, or less known companies, and even those companies demand crazy requirements from just one person.

[amberd]

I'm a Fullstack and that video is very accurate. I have to do everything but it's very disturbing that I'm physically unable to be an expert at everything I do.

[mijaelwatts]

I agree. Personally, I believe there's still the need for back-end and front-end devs at the same time. Companies nowadays want to "save money" by hiring full-stack devs and the reality (which is something u mentioned and I totally agree) is that as a full-stack u will not very much become an expert.

On the other hand, the good thing about a full-stack dev is that in a long term can be very helpful as a tech lead of a team or a project, because he or she will have a wide range of knowledge from the front-end util the DB.

[U-Trance]

Im studying to be a frontend developer myself. Ive always had this thought in the back of my head "frontend is the weakest and easiest and i chose for that". Real reason as you said is i love seeing what im doing. I love making a site and thinking of how users would react with it and all that. Ive tried php and failed, horribly. Took me weeks to make a hangman game with a database of random words attached.

Point is thanks for pointing out that frontend, backend and fullstack are all respectable proffesions and all have their positives and negatives!

[FranzStFleur]

To findout which one is better or which one you should learn skip to 13:55

[hatsevich]

I really like your style of presentation when you draw a 4-cell table with headings and fill the cells as you talk — this makes a really good experience for the viewer!

[PeterPanicker]

Despite being in the industry for a long time and maybe having a rough idea what a full stack developer is .... this really made it quite clear. Thank you!

[pankajs]

You always strike the right spot. Nothing on the web clarifies this. Gives perfect vision.
Thanks a lot. Very helpful. I. Already doing your third course. React

[doubledouble]

Well said! Some topics that i find interesting for your future videos:
Client Side vs Server Side rendering,
Authentication(JSON Web Tokens or any other technique like OAUTH, passport js) Security concerns and a better approach.
Code testing and code splitting.

[DheerajBhaskar]

You really put some thought into this. I loved the video. I learn things I'd not thought about like being a full stack dev, you're trading off mastering front-/back-end

[FellTheSky]

fullstack sounds like a company wanting to save costs

[ThatGuyyyyy]

I personally feel that it’s good for any developer to have a good familiarity with both frontend and backend, along with some knowledge of networking, disaster recovery, and other basic IT concepts. Then he or she can choose to specialize in either frontend or backend. However, when the job or personal interest arise, be able to work on the other side.

[adombangmunangmbomndih]

You sure can be an expert in some tech and still be a full stack developer. The title "full-stack developer" is not some dark curse that stops anyone from becoming an expert.

I know colleagues who specialized in frontend for a couple of years and decided after some time to get more involved with backend development...effectively making them full-stack devs after a year or two of doing that.

If you are a back-end expert working with node, it doesn't take much of a leap to become a good full-stack developer (learning HTML and CSS is really not difficult, and for a node developer frontend javascript frameworks/libraries like react are not hard to grasp either. Backend developers already handle things like cashing and validation, so there's really not that much left to take on to become a great full-stack dev) and when you do, your expertise in the backend doesn't magically disappear.

This was a great video but it felt almost like an attempt to discourage aspiring full-stack developers.
Specializing is great but what's much better is being a Jack of all trades and a master of one...which is something a lot of experienced developers end up becoming.

[guilhermeh.v.santos]

Extremely interesting. I had no idea about the area in general, found this video very helpful. I'm starting to search about it to see if I fit or not. And what can I do but all I see is some tutorial videos. Thumbs up

[wendy_doll]

One of the best videos explaining stuff in CS I found so far! Thank you very much!

[JavedKhalil]

My instructor at Udemy. I am learning js frameworks/libraries from him on Udemy. Good courses and great job.

[cedrics]

Very interesting and informative. I know it's not always positive to be a 'Jack of all trades', but being able to build it all end-to-end is a blast. Whichever you pick, it's up to what you want to be doing all day.

[justinheath]

Thanks so much for this video, I have worked as a FS developer for 3 years now and never really got it. This has definitely answered so many questions for me and I feel I can finally go forward and know how to progress myself.

[luis_soul]

I know this is video is 2 years old but I have to comment, I really love your videos, very helpful.

Personally I agree with you that every developer should start as a Fullstack to get the knowledge of everything, at least get the basics and stuff. Once you get that you can start to decide what's better for you or which one you have more passion. For me at the start It was backend but then I started to see how JavaScript was growing and all the technologies that came up make me have a lot of interest for the Front-End and now here I am, loving React so much.

Keep going with these videos, so interesting. Already suscribing and liking your videos. Cheers.