Frontend & backend and their Devs

What happens in the browser, stays in the browser.

We divide code in Frontend and Backend. Not really for fun, but because of a reason. In order to understand basic Software Architecture, we need to understand the split between frontend and backend.

It's not so easy as to say that what you see is the frontend and the backend is just “everything behind”. We need to think about server side and client side.

So, code is running on a server. When an online application is loading (it’s requested) first some things are happening on the server side, then the output of this (whatever is “calculated”) lands in a browser. This output is the frontend.

End of story? Not really.

But digging deeper is out of scope. I will switch to share my experiences working with frontend, backend and full-stack developers instead.

Frontend vs backend vs full-stack

Frontend developers know how to move from an idea to a complete interactive piece of code using HTML/CSS/ JavaScript, etc.

Asking a frontend developer to fix something in the backend is like asking a carpenter to renovate your bathroom. They could figure it out, but it will take a while.

Backend developers know how to architect an application from the database model, to controllers, routes and API’s. They are most likely experts in PHP, Java, .Net, Python or any other or many programming languages.

Asking a backend developer to fix the frontend, is like asking the building architect to paint your house. They could also figure it out, but it will take a while.

We also got some full-stack developers. This means they know the entire code stack, meaning both backend and frontend.

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Learn more about the different tech-stacks in "The CTO Playbook", written by our CTO Robert Mejlerö, available on Amazon/Kindle.