Ask YC: Javascript and server-side programming, which is harder for you?
I work as a django/python programmer by day, although I do my fair share of front-end work (mostly template building/cleaning and ajax/javascript/jquery.)
Although I've been programming for over half my life, I find that of all the things I do on a regular basis, it's doing DOM manipulation post-ajax call that forces me to do the most mental-judo.
Does anyone else find js work more difficult, relatively speaking, than typical server-side work?
(And yes, I use jquery.) I've done both and front-end work is definitelly harder. If you do RIA with a lot of ajax updates, need to keep state and handle events, it becomes even more complex. Historically, backend work has always been a piece of cake for me: receive data, persist it, return updated data, start over. This is way simpler. I've yet to encounter a project where the inverse will be true. End-Users are so ingenious! Javascript tends to be harder to debug. It's pretty rare that it takes me more than a few minutes to figure out why a sever-side error is occurring, even if it takes longer to fix the problem. The lack of good debugging tools continually stymies me. What about JS server-side programming? ;) I imagine if you were a front-end JS programmer by day but doing your fair share of Python / Django then the JS would be a bit easier. I split 75/25% client/server (Python/Pylons/Django) and find the server stuff easier. The thing about doing server development is that once it's working, it's working. On the client side, once you get it working you're only halfway there unless you're doing boring stuff. I'm a back-end programmer by day who dreams of doing embedded work. Hacking the DOM in js is not my specialty. That said, I've hacked around with node.js. For me javascript is harder. Actually server-side is javascript too. Client-side js is harder because of browser issues, and the fact that client-side js I worry about more things like performance because the client can have a piece of shit pentium 4 workstation with ie6. We don't do a lot of flashy animations or anything like that at my place of employment, so generally it's a, "get it working, get it working reliably" priority order. Server-side js is something I'd like to do more of, but I rarely have an excuse to whip it out, at home or work. I'm in the process of learning rails with an old friend at home, simply for a change of pace.