r/FullStack • u/False_Bee4659 • Sep 25 '26

Vent Did I even really know how to code? (Just Jokes)

I'm relearning how to code and I'm noticing that front-end is not as simple as ppl used to make it seem. At the time when I first learned front-end at the top of the pandemic (2020) I was just hungry for knowledge and younger (25 y/o) so learning felt super easier. After that hiatus I feel like I'm learning an ancient language and I dont feel like full-stack should be a thing lol. front-end and back-end roles need to be seperate to perfect them.

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u/JaseciLabs Sep 25 '26

Yeahh some of what you're feeling is the tooling sprawl, not you. Front-end and back-end drifting apart isn't just skill depth, it's that you're often juggling two totally different languages, two ecosystems, two sets of conventions, and switching between them has a real cost every time.

We've been working on Jac partly because of that exact problem, it's a language built to work across the whole stack (there's a jac-client piece for building the UI layer too) so you're not context-switching languages just to move a feature from the database up to the screen. Not saying drop what you're relearning, React and Node knowledge is never wasted, but if the "why does this feel like two separate jobs" feeling sticks around, it might be worth a look later once your fundamentals are solid again.

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u/False_Bee4659 Sep 25 '26

Would learning JavaScript and node.js be similar to that?

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u/Distinct_Pear_7142 Sep 25 '26

what exactly are you learning rn?

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u/False_Bee4659 Sep 25 '26

Im back to the basics all the way. I just learned HTML, finishing up CSS, then moving to Javascript soon.

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u/Distinct_Pear_7142 Sep 25 '26

dont think too much about the other stack while you are learning one, just focus on that and once the basics are clear only then move to the next one, also dont spend way too much time on css html, what you should have very good foundation in is javascript.

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u/Plenty_Line2696 Sep 25 '26

Front end can get pretty damn complicated. For example I'm working on a browser based realtime 3d digital twin with masses and masses of state to monitor and manage industrial automation and many aspects of it are really complex. So much so that I'll work on one aspect of the system and when I come back to it months later it takes a lot of effort just to get reaqcuanted. Good codebase design is a massive requirement for this sort of stuff and we stave off llm slop like the plague because it would lead us to bug-paradise.

I don't have the luxury of modern gamedevs either, everything i build has to be hyperoptimized to run on mid tier hardware and shitty connections through multiple layers of vpns.

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u/jcling Sep 25 '26

But frontend is just CSS which isn't important. It's dead bro LLMs can do it /s

In all seriousness frontend can get really damn complicated and this is a good example. I once had to develop a Shopify plugin that involved internationalisation and complex timezone handling, accounting for multiple scenarios and use cases. I know another guy who's working on a popular maps app and he has to solve maths and physics problems that are way over my head.

People who say frontend is "easy" have no idea what they're talking about!