If you opened this thread, I'm guessing you already know the definition of a frontend developer, and the distinctions between them and other developers. So as a frontend developer and enthusiast myself, I've been so curious to know whether being solely a frontend developer can be accorded as a successful programming career, cos truth be told, I am only interested in frontend development cos I am the visual-inclined and artistic type of person. I love seeing the beauty of what I'm doing. Although, I'm logically capable to dive into backend too, but the interest is not just present, but still, I want to have a solid programming career. Unfortunately from my hypothesis, most great devs I've met are either full-stack or the backend engineers. Thus, my question: Is the frontend development career path of programming enough to make you a successful programmer?

jbreezy:
If you opened this thread, I'm guessing you already know the definition of a frontend developer, and the distinctions between them and other developers. So as a frontend developer and enthusiast myself, I've been so curious to know whether being solely a frontend developer can be accorded as a successful programming career, cos truth be told, I am only interested in frontend development cos I am the visual-inclined and artistic type of person. I love seeing the beauty of what I'm doing. Although, I'm logically capable to dive into backend too, but the interest is not just present, but still, I want to have a solid programming career. Unfortunately from my hypothesis, most great devs I've met are either full-stack or the backend engineers. Thus, my question: Is the frontend development career path of programming enough to make you a successful programmer?

When you say frontend i understand you mean frontend for web apps and all that, but that is not true. An android and ios developer can also be called a frontend developer and at same time, a programmer. When it also comes to frontend, we also deal with logic. Almost every conditional statement you find in backend can also be found in frontend. The main difference is that fact that, backend deals with data, security, storage etc. So yes choosing frontend makes you a solid programmer. You can expand your languages to java, c# etc.

devdev:

When you say frontend i understand you mean frontend for web apps and all that, but that is not true. An android and ios developer can also be called a frontend developer and at same time, a programmer. When it also comes to frontend, we also deal with logic. Almost every conditional statement you find in backend can also be found in frontend. The main difference is that fact that, backend deals with data, security, storage etc. So yes choosing frontend makes you a solid programmer. You can expand your languages to java, c# etc.

Hmmm great response as I must say. And oh yeah, I'm quite vast with python too cos I learned data structures and algorithm with it. Thanks.

Please op which material are u using to learn data structure and algorithm can you recommend any?

bercarray:
Please op which material are u using to learn data structure and algorithm can you recommend any?

textbook-grokking algorithm video-codebasics on youtube

Any one you choose, just learn it well very very well.

to be a backend developer you need to know a little bit of front end anyways.

but to be a frontend developer you may not need to know anything about backend.

Those thinking front end is easy haven't actually built a full scale app with modern UI.

That's when you'd know even CSS is sometimes more confusing than javascript

with javascript you know your code will run as expected once you've written it properly.

With CSS You will swear to god you've set second elements z-index to even 10000000 and the first to 1 but yet the second will refuse to come up in front of the first

GREATIGBOMAN:
Any one you choose, just learn it well very very well.

to be a backend developer you need to know a little bit of front end anyways.

but to be a frontend developer you may not need to know anything about backend.

Those thinking front end is easy haven't actually built a full scale app with modern UI.

That's when you'd know even CSS is sometimes more confusing than javascript

with javascript you know your code will run as expected once you've written it properly.

With CSS You will swear to god you've set second elements z-index to even 10000000 and the first to 1 but yet the second will refuse to come up in front of the first

And conforming your interface to render well in all browsers and screen sizes is another big headache.

jbreezy:
Hmmm great response as I must say. And oh yeah, I'm quite vast with python too cos I learned data structures and algorithm with it. Thanks.

As a frontend dev you would be working with data from the backend, knowledge of how d backend is structure is an added advantage. since you have knowledge of python, why not pick up web framework flask of django.

JUST A Frontend Dev ?

The fact that you used the word JUST means you don't know what you're doing.

Frontend Dev has the lowest barrier of entry at the Junior level because HTML/JS/CSS is simple to learn, but has one of the highest barrier at the Senior level.

Later on, you will discover that Frontend is super hard with all the endless frontend frameworks and UI libraries that you have to keep up with. Each company you join is using a different Frontend framework, each personal project you get into might be using a different development pattern.

I can tell you for sure that Backend at Senior level is x10 simpler than Frontend, No rendering + No CSS problems, No 3rd party UI framework dependency problem, No Spaghetti code problems etc Most backend language & codebases use an official architectural pattern that is followed for their projects unlike Frontend that everyone creates their own nonsense. Write code, write test for backend, create Pull Request, finish.

So please, stop using the word JUST. Frontend Development is already a mouth-full to learn.

Following

truthsayer009:
JUST A Frontend Dev ?

The fact that you used the word JUST means you don't know what you're doing.

Frontend Dev has the lowest barrier of entry at the Junior level because HTML/JS/CSS is simple to learn, but has one of the highest barrier at the Senior level.

Later on, you will discover that Frontend is super hard with all the endless frontend frameworks and UI libraries that you have to keep up with. Each company you join is using a different Frontend framework, each personal project you get into might be using a different development pattern.

I can tell you for sure that Backend at Senior level is x10 simpler than Frontend, No rendering + No CSS problems, No 3rd party UI framework dependency problem, No Spaghetti code problems etc Most backend language & codebases use an official architectural pattern that is followed for their projects unlike Frontend that everyone creates their own nonsense. Write code, write test for backend, create Pull Request, finish.

So please, stop using the word JUST. Frontend Development is already a mouth-full to learn.

When I said "just", I meant choosing only frontend development, not undermining it. Of course, it's obvious frontend entails a lot. And I already changed the 'just' to 'only'.

donproject2:


And conforming your interface to render well in all browsers, all screen sizes and another big headache. To me.

Very tasky..Reason some people run to backend since only logic has the greater ratio of its requirements.

jbreezy:
When I said "just", I meant choosing only frontend development, not undermining it. Of course, it's obvious frontend entails a lot. And I already changed the 'just' to 'only'.

The truth is, while learning Frontend development, you would have to at least know some practical aspects of backend, api and other things. The knowledge is not in isolation because you will constantly work with backend devs. Sometimes for your personal projects, you would have to create your own APIs after fetching information from database using a backend technology.

Also, whenever something doesn't work on your Frontend, YOU the frontend dev will be blamed. The issue will most likely come from the backend but nobody will talk about that, they will blame you. So It's not an easy job.

.....But back end Na in day sweet pass

U can't really be a good front end dev if u don't have a working knowledge o f the backend.