Re:Ask HN: Which is harder Front end or Back end?
by jimmaswell on Saturday August 16, 2014 @03:25PM
(#8187227)
Please don't write backend in JavaScript. It's an ugly hack language full of pitfalls that we're stuck with for now on web pages; why put it on the backend where uptime and reliability are even more important? You need a slew of extensions to make it predictable and debuggable enough in that situation. I have yet to come across a situation where I really needed to share a library between my web page and server application, but I have in the client and server of a non-web game, so there are probably reasonable scenarios where it's useful, but from what I've heard getting a JS library to the point of portability between both webpages and node/other JS backends is more trouble than it's worth. PHP is even more of an ugly hack language filled with pitfalls. I've had a much better time writing backend in either .NET or python. Python's looseness still made it harder to deal with for complex situations but it's decent. If you like the idea of .NET on the backend but don't want to or can't have mono/.NET there's JSP which also is probably a good idea.
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Re:Ask HN: Which is harder Front end or Back end?
by lowboy on Saturday August 16, 2014 @03:41PM
(#8187285)
Web apps have been tilting more heavily toward the frontend (using a backend as an API/data layer), and I don't see that slowing down any time soon, so the frontend is the way to go, IMO.
If we're targeting the frontend and assuming OP's friend has limited experience programming, there's a benefit to learning the same (flawed) language in both the back and frontend, instead of learning two languages. Even if that one language is flawed.
I've shared code between Node and the browser using Browserify [0], and it's pretty easy. Page size can take a hit if you use modules that are meant for the backend and have large dependency graphs, but even then it could be worth it.