I'm a front end developer who knows Ruby on rails and Node Js, I still call myself a freaking FRONT END DEVELOPER because I don't have enough knowledge of the required concepts to trust my skill in a complex backend project.

How the fuck there are so many full stack developers who lack shit tons of knowledge in both specialties! And worst of those are asp.net "FULLSTACK DEVS" that can't write JavaScript without copying and pasting from SO and don't know that display flex is a thing!

I guess some people have a pretty old-fashioned view of that job.

In 2000 you sure could call yourself a full stack dev for being able to design in Photoshop or GIMP, realize your design with HTML & CSS and some simple scripts in PHP 4.0 (non-oop) and store some data in a MySQL db,...

Now there is sooooo much more... Everytime I think I get a grasp of how much is out there... I realize I know nothing...

For me, a full-stack developer is one that is proficient in something like ASP.NET and knows a little bit of jQuery. Am I right?

I wouldn't worry too much about full stack devs sucking in a few areas, most specialized developers suck at their only responsibility as well.

If you are expected/required to cover the full stack at your current job then you are a full stack developer, your job description doesn't change just because you suck (unless your employer figures it out and replaces you)

@serpent5 yep, exactly!

@ItsNotMyFault I guess you're right.

There is always so much hate about full stack developers that Im getting scared to call me that.
I can use HTML5, CSS3 including flexbox and css grid without the need to check documentation. I also write SQL and PHP fluently, I know Laravel and Vue.
Ive never used jQuery in a real project because of the pageload, but for some local electron development Ive used it.
I design databases for both MySQL type DB's and MongoDB.

I started out as a gamedev and made a few games with C++.

I see myself as a fullstack developer but I get a lot of hate because of this from people who dont know me or my code.

Please tell me, can I call myself fullstack or not?

Yeah its absolutely ridiculous.

They are basically saying to me they can handle any problem that happens in their projects back end, middleware or front end without extensive help from the internet.

Then you also get the types who patch bugs in random areas of the stack rather than fixing it where it became a problem.

Easy example is front end website shows text all in lower case, so they call a function to make it camel case. When really they could of fixed the issue in the database.

These fixes get out of hand fast and then the whole stack is poisoned.

GOOD.

@Codex404 Its pretty much the same for me, started out with hobby games (basic, pascal, x86 asm, c++) and then web and later mobile before going back to web again.

My early work projects where definitely full stack (web/mobile production company, usually 1 developer per project/customer most projects taking 1-2 months at most) but since i became a consultant projects have been significantly bigger with a lot more people involved making specialization a lot easier so now i would consider myself more of a backend developer (The only frontend work i've done in the last 2 years have been for internal tools so its getting a bit rusty)

@ItsNotMyFault I still do both an a daily basis myself. I prefer doing backend (no annoying browser compability) but frontend isn't something I dislike and I know how to do it (sometimes better than frontenders who are working as long as me)

@Lemoncake tbh sometimes you want these camelcase things to happen on the front end (with CSS) since screen readers can read some uppercased words as separate letters. It doesn't do this with CSS uppercased words. But what I get from your story is that they did this with javascript?

@Codex404 just an example, can't directly remember a real life scenario right now.

After more than 10 years on code, I also still can't call my self a "full stack".
The idea is:
I can say programming is simple, you can write this command and it will do this, but then exactly as you said, you should spend years and years to learn the best practices, the smartest implementation and so on.
And especially with web we need minimum 5 languages and boahh frameworks.

@DonMcCoy if that is the definition of full stack then Im not a full stack developer, (unless SCSS, Less, Typescript and other supersets count as languages). Still I see myself as a fullstack developer since I do both on a daily basis without problems and with pleasure.

@Codex404
It isn't a strict definition to be a full stack.
And of course as you are able to create reliable solutions efficiently, then I think you are a full stack.