It was around the early to mid 2000s when we went full stack. Building software was really expensive and complex, and it took a lot of people to manage a website. This is what developers were looking for in order to become full stack developers. Each technology layer was forced to innovate, new simple languages such as PHP and Ruby were introduced, and frameworks such as emberjs, jQuery, and JavaScript were introduced.
Coding started to become popular around that time. With these innovations and especially the new ways of building software on the web, developers were able to do multiple things. As a result, the full-stack developer was born. For the first time, developers were able to write back-end applications.
The purpose of this is why we rely on other topics and backend developers to get the server-side endpoints that serve the data. This is an innovative approach that allows developers to do this on their own. There is no doubt that a full-stack developer brings many benefits to web development, but on the other hand, there are some disadvantages.
First, let's take a look at the advantages of becoming a full-stack developer.
Expanding your portfolio
One of the biggest advantages of becoming a full-stack developer is that you are no longer limited in what you can do as a front-end developer. As you can see, many developers feel limited by this. They are not able to create their own projects.
They can't come up with different ideas because all they know is the front end of a static page. If you limit yourself to the front-end, you limit yourself to a very small part of the development process. By understanding the full spectrum and becoming a full stack developer, you will be able to understand applications and create projects that go beyond an introduction to front-end development.
More Opportunities
Many developers are always looking for a job and trying to get something out of it. In reality, you won't get a variety of jobs because employers are looking for people who know MySQL, PHP, JavaScript, MongoDB, Node.js, CSS, HTML, or who can build microservices. If you can only do what others can do, you won't get a really good job unless you know all areas of web development, i.e. the full stack. So, if you really want to make money and work for yourself, you must learn back-end development as well.
Be ahead of the times
There are many people who only know front-end work or only know back-end development. That's all they can do. However, if you are an expert in all three layers, know CSS, HTML, and JavaScript, and are also an expert in the backend, and are familiar with server-side languages, and can build an entire website on your own and add additional features to it If you can build an entire website on your own and add additional features to it, then you are the person to hire.
Learning front-end and back-end languages on top of someone else who can only do one job is not so easy, of course. The thing to remember is that it's all about development. It is a cycle where everything is interconnected.
Increased rewards
As a full-stack developer, you can get paid more. When a company hires a developer, they want you to know as much as possible. When you go to a company, the company wants you to be active. They want you to know everything. If you can do all those things, you will be rewarded more. If you know more than 80% of what's on your wishlist, you're the right developer for the job. Because whatever they want you to do, you will take care of it.
For a deeper understanding
If you only know front-end or back-end development, you will become one-dimensional. For example, if you are a front-end developer, if something goes wrong on the server side, there is nothing you can do about it and you always have to ask for help from others. Full-spectrum development can help the developer. Understanding the front-end and back-end is a really good thing. You can create your own apps from scratch. Apps such as Facebook, Twitter, Airbnb, etc. are successful because developers understand the app more deeply, and they wouldn't be this far along if they didn't understand the full stack.
Let's take a look at the benefits from a business perspective.
Startups
For startups, hiring a full-stack developer is a very good reason to be a startup. You may be starting a new project. It is a good idea to have a full-stack developer create the basic software structure and put all the components of the application where they need to be.
Technical Leaders
A full-stack developer is a great choice as a team leader for a technical team. By understanding the full cycle of web development, they can better understand the business requirements and help other developers put all the development elements together with their extensive engineering skills. Considering all the parameters of a project, they can be an invaluable resource for a company.
Cost-effective
Full-stack developers are expensive for the expertise they provide. However, they are much more cost effective than hiring multiple experts for each layer of a development project. Most importantly, it reduces the communication overhead. This is because with more experts in place, each will rely on a different expert for their part of the project, requiring a lot of coordination to complete a single page. It also saves a lot of time because the project is done by one developer who knows how to put everything together faster and easier.
Disadvantages
The number of stacks keeps growing.
The first problem for a full-stack developer is that the stack itself is growing tremendously. It's not just front-end, back-end, and database anymore. It's now machine learning, data analytics, mobile and web, deployment and release management, and much more. As technology evolves in this way, it is becoming increasingly difficult to be a full-stack company.
Aiming for a higher standard
Standards of software quality are now much higher, and a perfect user experience is no longer a luxury, but an expectation. To meet these high standards, applications need to be not only basic, but also labyrinthine, full-stack knowledge.
Specialized technologies
The third problem facing developers is that each layer of the full stack is consistently becoming more specialized, more detailed, and more complex, even the traditional ones like front-end, back-end, and database. Needless to say, the incredibly detailed specializations we have within each layer are constantly changing.
For example, on the front end, there are large JavaScript coding programs that are considered core by some people, and then there are frameworks like Angular and React, and that's just looking at everything that is JavaScript.
Then there's all the UI and UX engineering, prototyping, CSS architecture, design and animation, and aesthetics involved. And then there was everything related to infrastructure, including tools, package management, and software design. This was not possible in the mid-2000s.
Then there are testing strategies, such as unit testing, immersion testing, and end-to-end testing, which are so important that they are almost impossible to accomplish by one person. On top of that, there is the front-end architecture. All the code is built on top of the architecture. The basic role of the front end is to bring all of this together. It's not just about the front end, it's about all the frameworks and how they change with each release.
A completely different architecture
The backend is a completely different thing, and the nature of the problem is completely different. There are so many different programming paradigms, languages and frameworks that it takes time to learn them and implement them in real projects. In addition, just keeping up with the frameworks can be a full-time job.
An all-rounder, all-rounder
Another downside of being a full-stack developer is that you are a jack of all trades and master of none. Front-end, back-end, server-side, MySQL, PHP, Node.js, JavaScript, MongoDB, CSS, HTML5 - learning it all takes time. Most developers try to master everything at once, but given the scope of the technology, that's impossible, and it's certainly hard, if not impossible, to develop expertise in everything you do. And that's exactly what most developers are doing.
For startups with limited budgets, it may be a good idea to have one person doing a variety of jobs to keep costs down. However, there is no denying that doing so reduces the quality of each layer, and that should not be a programmer's goal, nor something to be proud of.
You need to study and work in an area where you are more familiar with all the key technologies. You need to find an area of expertise that suits you.
To Summarize
A full-stack developer can put everything in one basket and carry most of the projects by himself. It's good to understand the different parts of a system. You should take the time to understand the different technologies. However, in reality, you can't be proficient in everything. Specialization is a good thing.
We should learn from the industrial revolution that specialization is necessary and valuable, and that one person doesn't need to do everything. We need specialists in every field. Just as you would choose a professional doctor or lawyer for a specific problem, you should hire a full stack developer for each layer of development.
Source: www.coreswipeglobal.com
