Refusing Work

Most companies seem to have a group of people who gravitate to either front-end or back-end development. I’ve been struggling to wrap my head around this because it doesn’t seem like a useful dichotomy.

It’s a fast-moving field, do you really want to carve a niche as a Unity programmer? An ActionScript expert? A Sharepoint developer? If you specialize to that degree, what happens when your technology of choice moves on?

How many of these have you come across?

  • “Front-end” developers who don’t understand the HTTP stack.
  • Companies that don’t have centralized source control.
  • “Back-end” developers who believe front-end code should be unit and performance tested just like server code - who don’t understand why squeezing maximum performance for one user on one machine would be as challenging as constructing a web app that served thousands of users at the same time.
  • Web designers who don’t know HTML, CSS and jQuery.
  • Anyone who takes a laissez-faire approach to security.
  • Project groups that don’t use Continuous Integration.

Understand More

Everyone has an area of interest where they excel and you should definitely pursue yours. Never forget that yours is a piece of the whole, and the more you understand of the whole the better you will be able to create value with your work.

If Photoshop is your bread and butter, learn how programmers slice your designs into HTML. Understand the technical limitations and get inspired by what the web browser can do for you.

If you’ve been slinging awesome responsive webpages, use your JavaScript skills to learn Node.js and understand where that server data is coming from and how it is stored. Expand your ability to write front-ends that scale as beautifully as they present.

If you are more comfortable in the bowels of a Linux server, download Cocos2d-x and experience the thrill your front-end counterparts get when their math turns into gorgeous sprites on-screen.

Everybody’s Talking

Every time you learn something new you open up a world of people you can network with and understand at some level.

Whenever someone asks how to get into the field, what do you answer? “Just do it!”