Currently Chief Developer of Superflows.dev || Write about development, engineering & experiences || Previously CEO of a software consulting firm for 10 years
You'll find many developers around who are titled "Full stack developer", but really aren't. Full stack developer is really a misnomer, because it is inherently vague. In my opinion, I would call somebody a full-stack developer when the following criteria are met.
The developer:
Is thoroughly fluent in at least one frontend framework and one backend framework
Has working knowledge of couple of more backend and frontend frameworks
Has acquired good generic level understanding and quickly learn new frameworks and deliver projects
Understands a few software architecture patterns and practices the concepts of good separation of concerns & writes scalable, modular and maintainable code
Is experienced enough to understand the importance of unit tests and insists on good standards of code coverage
Understands the basics of good user experience and knows the basic tenets of layouting and UI design
Agree with everything except the unit tests. Not that I'm religiously against them, but there's a time and a place for them. Absence of unit tests doesn't automatically equals bad code, or buggy software. I've seen plenty of code with 90%+ coverage, that was shady as hell. It depends on the type of project/team how much attention I give to unit testing. For example if I'm tasked with writing a ui component library, thats going to be used by a lot of other devs, definitely write unit tests. But if I'm tasked with writing an application that has a clear start and end I put more emphasis on acceptance criteria and testing that those are met.
Currently Chief Developer of Superflows.dev || Write about development, engineering & experiences || Previously CEO of a software consulting firm for 10 years
Yes, fair enough. That essentially means that a full-stack developer needs to be knowledgeable enough so as to understand how to get the best out of unit tests, particularly as the lines of code increase.
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You'll find many developers around who are titled "Full stack developer", but really aren't. Full stack developer is really a misnomer, because it is inherently vague. In my opinion, I would call somebody a full-stack developer when the following criteria are met.
The developer:
Agree with everything except the unit tests. Not that I'm religiously against them, but there's a time and a place for them. Absence of unit tests doesn't automatically equals bad code, or buggy software. I've seen plenty of code with 90%+ coverage, that was shady as hell. It depends on the type of project/team how much attention I give to unit testing. For example if I'm tasked with writing a ui component library, thats going to be used by a lot of other devs, definitely write unit tests. But if I'm tasked with writing an application that has a clear start and end I put more emphasis on acceptance criteria and testing that those are met.
Yes, fair enough. That essentially means that a full-stack developer needs to be knowledgeable enough so as to understand how to get the best out of unit tests, particularly as the lines of code increase.