So, as I figure out my post-high school life and delve into the world of coding, I finding myself with a question for you seasoned veterans in the field.

Regardless of what I like more, what makes more sense in the current climate of the industry - specializing in back end or front end, of going more full stack?

I'm curious myself about that as a matter of fact, so 📍 😅

The fields are merging. Soon there will be no such thing as front and back end devs.

Node is a great way to learn backend principles in a frontend language.

It depends partly on where you are located. In my country, fullstack skills are a must, generally. Java technologies rule the backend, taking up at least 70% of recruiting ads, followed by .NET.

As for frontend, Bootstrap+jQuery is still a heavily used combo. Though, lately, companies have been steering towards "newer" frameworks like React/Angular.

Your standard web application around here uses a stack like:

- IBM/Oracle RDBMS
- Java 6-8 + Spring 3-4
- Maven packaging
- jQuery
- Bootstrap 3 (High emphasis on IE8 compatibility)

I don't know your context, obviously, but I think you can do no wrong learning frontend first and working on SPAs, the move on to backend.

@AlgoRythm yeah, until WASM kills it :D

@telephantasm Yeah, well, I'm not even sure web browsers will be a thing when webasm takes over in 2050.

Already a thing :D

@telephantasm It's a thing, but it's barely supported anywhere and a LONG LONG way away from mainstream usage and support.

I still can't safely use flexbox!

Totally agree with @AlexDeLarge and @AlgoRythm .
As having the experience of living in all environments (being independent for about 7 years then employed as: 1 year fullstack + devops, 1 year frontend, 2 years backend, and now fullstack again.)

As for jobs, people now look for either a fullstack developer or a programmer who is a true expert in a very narrow field or specific programming language/framework.

@bioDan Exactly. We might hire guys for those specific frameworks because they're bloated, ever-changing bullshit and I don't want to spend all my time keeping up with this Thursday's framework.

I know it's cliche but you should do what you really like (believe me doing it professionnaly is different). If you don't know that's ok (we've all been there) you can go for fullstack and you will find your way.

I think there is no way around full-stack sooner or later.
Knowing how to do frontend, backend and working on different platforms, technologies and languages is in my opinion the real way to be a software developer. You don't have to know everything, but at least knowing basic principles of different parts of software development makes you really flexible in solving problems and it should be no big problem to find a job.
Some devs, if they are too narrowly specialized in one aspect (e.g. frontend only), they tend to solve some software problems with "their trusted" way, eventhought there would be better solutions/tools which this "narrow specialist" never heard of.

📍i feel the samee

also, here's a bunch of helpful stuff

https://medium.com/coderbyte/...