I'm not sure how long you've been in the industry. But you sound like it is less than maybe 10 years. Before react and such, you were considered a frontend developer when you delivered your javascript + html + css from any backend, though typically it would be served by php, RoR, or, more limitedly, by some python. Backend developers didn't touch html or css and couldn't be bothered to to think about js. The balance between full stack, backend, and frontend teetered on if you we're concerned with pixel alignment and UI things vs data storage, manipulation, and retrieval.
Again, back in the day, you wouldn't call yourself a backend dev if you did anything meaningful with html UI. You would still call yourself frontend even though you had to work through templating in a given backend language.
Source: I've been doing this for a couple of decades.
> I'm not sure how long you've been in the industry. But you sound like it is less than maybe 10 years.
Okay. No offence, but so do you.
> Before react and such, you were considered a frontend developer when you delivered your javascript + html + css from any backend, though typically it would be served by php, RoR, or, more limitedly, by some python.
Not really. Back in the day, before the great divide [1], the terms we used were "Web Designer" and "Web Developer". We also had "Flash Developer" but I digress. A web designer was expected to know all the front-end stuff including JS, since the front-end was not that complex. Almost all complexity was at the back-end, and that was the job of a web developer. The term "front-end web developer" simply did not exist in 2003. There was nothing to "develop" in the front end, since all complexity was on the back. Yes, there were some exceptions, but in those days, PHP was king. React is current king, and it's funny how it gets the same hate PHP got back in the day. Some people just like to tear down and burn whatever is at the top. Reacts successor will get the same hate. Thats how you know who the king is.
> Again, back in the day, you wouldn't call yourself a backend dev if you did anything meaningful with html UI. You would still call yourself frontend even though you had to work through templating in a given backend language.
Wrong. Why would someone working on PHP and MySQL call themselves frontend? So who were the backends back then? Strange thing to call yourself "front", when no one called themselves "back", don't your think? Like I said, the
terms back then were web developer and web designer.
> Source: I've been doing this for a couple of decades.
Again, back in the day, you wouldn't call yourself a backend dev if you did anything meaningful with html UI. You would still call yourself frontend even though you had to work through templating in a given backend language.
Source: I've been doing this for a couple of decades.