I Hate Front-end Development

You are a victim of click bait. Ta-da!

Chances are you currently work in Front-end development and came looking for someone to mourn with. Or possibly, came looking for a passage to the lights of north star located far away from the black hole called front-end! I totally understand this perception, with a gesture of “Been there, done that!”.

But, did you ever stop and think what is it that you hate about Front-end?

When someone asked me the same question, here is what I came up with:

1. HTML & CSS. Period.
2. JavaScript? All the design faults, pathetic tooling, lack of usability, created in 10 days…
3. Try dozing off for three days, deprecation messages will wake you up if nothing else
4. Its Front-end pal, real programmers don’t do that!

Let’s look at it from another angle, shall we?

Who are Engineers? Do we understand the baton passed to us?

Want to read the long technical answer? See wiki.

Engineers solve problems by designing solutions which conform to the requirements, constraints and practicalities. Front-end is a technical requirement or more appropriately a practical playground with you being the player in it. If you are a good enough engineer then Front-end needs you to solve the problems that come with the ecosystem. Some of which perhaps contribute to the FATIGUE as well.

Like it or not people use the web everyday and will continue to use it. As a matter of fact, the number will keep growing. When it comes to users, business and competition, there is always a room for improvement, some extra mile you can go. Problems won’t be solved once and for all, they will keep coming. They will become tougher to spot but on the bright side it makes them tougher to solve as well.

A quick fact for you, 55% of world population is internet user in 2018. So, even more opportunities will surface because the remaining 45% will start using it someday. So end is not anywhere near, yet!

‘That’s wise’, can I send that wisdom as a gift from Amazon?

If wisdom was sold, it would definitely be most in demand item on Black Fridays :). But its not, you have to earn it by using your brains and accumulating the right set of experiences.

How did I get my head around it? Someone, once asked me to try creating a Google Docs clone. I gave it some thought and once the complexity of problem hit me, I realized, some of hardest problems around were solved, and will be solved using HTML, CSS and JS.

FYI, Google Docs really changed the game. They made it because so many users faced collaboration problems everyday. Not because working in Front-end was a sweet ride and it was hot in the market. In the end, it’s about what people use.

Not that you should shut the drapes and zone out other domains because that is also an anti-pattern. Just be an engineer, learn what you can and play according to the field.

Ahem! How about the abomination inflicted on the world called JavaScript?

I eventually made my peace with it, however, I am far from a ‘fanboy’. JavaScript has taken over the programming world as a universal language and it deserves respect for that. Web, Mobile, Desktop, Server, IOT, you name it and JavaScript is there. It’s even making inroads in Machine Learning albeit for learning purposes, but who knows, it’s JS after all and you should keep betting on it.
This debate would have made more sense in the pre-ES2015 world because the language has matured greatly since then. Despite any problems you may still find, one thing is for sure, it isn’t going anywhere. Probably, its dominance of programming world will continue to increase. It has been the top rated language on GitHub for several years now. In fact, top opensource projects list has also been dominated by JavaScript ecosystem. However, it is not “One to rule them all”, at least yet!

How about the limitations that come with JavaScript?

You can work around the limitations by switching to another language which compiles to JavaScript and has semantics better suited to your needs. Some good examples include Typescript, Elm, ReasonML, ClojureScript, Scala, Kotlin and this list goes on. In fact the JavaScript you write and the code you deploy is already so much different due to it being compiled/transpiled by tools such as babel.

Prophecy of tech which might make Front-end more interesting

1. Web Assembly, native performance right in your browser. Need I say more?
2. Rust, awesome semantics, built by Mozilla, most loved language and compiles to Web Assembly. Future world could be happier using Rust in tandem with JavaScript!
3. WebGL, take the graphics to next level by leveraging OpenGL.
4. Typescript, JavaScript that scales!
5. ReasonML, an alternative OCaml syntax for JS developers which compiles to JavaScript as well as native. Tight integration with React. Built by Jordan Walke creator of React at Facebook. Regarded as JavaScript with ES2050 features.
6. …Any technology you think was worth mentioning here and i missed out. Please reach out via comments!

I am the enlightened one but what about the rest of the world?

People don’t know what they don’t know and develop perceptions based on limited information. Key is to enlighten other people with the knowledge you have and this is the hard part. Being an engineer, that is perhaps another problem for you and this blabbering was just a shoddy attempt from my side!

P.S. Motive is to stop the stereotyping against Front-end development affecting the mindset of new Engineers coming into the field. This stereotyping may be unheard of to you but it is very common where I come from. This article is highly opinionated and tries to reason with the audience. You don’t have to nod along but you are welcome to leave your valuable feedback.

Kudos to

for amazing Artwork!