Fat Agnus

Over the years I have been involved in doing both backend and frontend development, but for some reason there seems to be a lack of understanding and maybe even respect for what Frontend Engineers do.

Maybe it is because that some people think that doing Html, Css, Javascript and so forth is easy, but in reality it can be really difficult, at least if you want to have it done right.

Browsers are the most hostile software development environment imaginable.
– Douglas Crockford

Douglas said this when he was talking about browsers on desktop computers, but he later on changed his mind when he saw how much worse it was on mobile.

There are so many things to keep track of when doing frontend development and you don’t have the same benefit as the Backend people do, like compiling your stuff, so you cant really trust what is going on.

In Nate Koechleys’s speech he sums up how many things that a frontend engineer needs to balance out.

A conservative number may be 672 different things we’re trying to balance as we built out these websites. – Nate Koechley

The number doesn’t include things like usability, performance and security.

In my mind, frontend engineers should get lots more credit for the work they do.

Watch Nate Koechley speak