I used to have much less of a preference. I used to like moving between frontend and backend. Today, I favor the backend heavily because of both environmental factors of my career, but also the way frontend has taken on some of what I view as unnecessary complexity. I remember when knowing the specs for HTML, CSS were big keys to web development. Now, those pieces, which are still important have been almost wholly subsumed by an obsession with Javascript.
This isn't new though, before CSS Animations were possible there were libraries like MooTools that brought richer animations to the web. But, with the rise of component-obsession some of the same pitfalls of aggressive reuse that have plagued certain backend communities at times are becoming the expected normal for frontend. Think of the early days of Rails and the seemingly never ending flow of gems that turned some apps into little more than bundles of configuration and light customization with more of a meta-development feel.
I'm thankful that my role has me working across frontend and backend, because I can help guide folks towards not assuming that breaking frontend into small pieces means that those pieces need to be reusable. Sometimes just having small pieces is valuable, even if some of those pieces are duplicated to some extent. So, I definitely prefer the backend, but I think the frontend still has a lot to learn from not reinventing and retreading paths that are already well-worn in other communities.
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I used to have much less of a preference. I used to like moving between frontend and backend. Today, I favor the backend heavily because of both environmental factors of my career, but also the way frontend has taken on some of what I view as unnecessary complexity. I remember when knowing the specs for HTML, CSS were big keys to web development. Now, those pieces, which are still important have been almost wholly subsumed by an obsession with Javascript.
This isn't new though, before CSS Animations were possible there were libraries like MooTools that brought richer animations to the web. But, with the rise of component-obsession some of the same pitfalls of aggressive reuse that have plagued certain backend communities at times are becoming the expected normal for frontend. Think of the early days of Rails and the seemingly never ending flow of gems that turned some apps into little more than bundles of configuration and light customization with more of a meta-development feel.
I'm thankful that my role has me working across frontend and backend, because I can help guide folks towards not assuming that breaking frontend into small pieces means that those pieces need to be reusable. Sometimes just having small pieces is valuable, even if some of those pieces are duplicated to some extent. So, I definitely prefer the backend, but I think the frontend still has a lot to learn from not reinventing and retreading paths that are already well-worn in other communities.