Is Front-End Your Weakest Link?
Today, a rails programmer can write the back-end of a web application without ever opening a browser. With well-written functional tests there is no need to do verify your work in the browser. In theory you could deliver a fully tested application to a front-end programmer and he could build the proper views to deliver your application to the masses.
What really irks me is how some players in the industry disseminate the myth that front-end development can be an after-thought. Hearing a manager say that cheap code-monkeys could do the front-end part is a good way to put your entire application in jeopardy.
What I propose is that people stop making it sound like back-end is more important than front-end. They both are and if you ignore either one of them it doesn’t matter how good the other is.
A web application is a chain where the back-end and the front-end are links between your business and its users. If your users see a crappy front-end you will never say “Well at least the back-end is sound”.
on April 11th, 2008 at 10:42 am
Maybe because the wall between the artist and the engineer it’s still there.
This isn’t true for hot Web companies who consider artists-enginner a must for their front-end because they know that they push the browser to their limits.
I agree with your proposition, because our days, the great Chef aren’t the bedonnant moustachu vieux garçon but the 6 foot blond hair surfer who is well in his body.
So being artiststic and scientist at the same time is something more frequent those days. Walls are falling.
Thanks
on April 11th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
Right on the money Gary! The front-end is just as important as the back-end but the paradigm has always been that “It has to work first”, which for some reason doesn’t account for how it “works” with the actual user.
I do believe those walls are falling, but we’re still a ways away from front-end development being as treasured as back-end.