[chlee]

Front-end programming is very visual. You can immediately see/sense/feel what you have developed/program, so there is a expedited positive feedback loop.

This can appeal to beginner programmers because it gives a immediate sense of satisfaction and accomplishment vs. backend programming where you see lines of output spit back to you in a terminal.

[cm2187]

I may agree in term of first experience, but after a while (when you pass the "first time I..."), UI programming is a lot more tedious than back end. It requires so much boiler plate code to just achieve little things, having to worry about weird CSS behaviours, fighting winforms that do not do exactly what we want, obscure WPF syntax, etc. I feel that backend you only focus on your problem and get to an "ideal" solution quicker, which is more gratifying.

[kuhzaam]

That's interesting, as I feel the opposite. I am a front end dev for a large eComm company, but do a lot of back end programming and scripting in my free time. The reason I love programming is problem solving. I have the most fun doing coding challenges, and get the most immediate sense of satisfaction and accomplishment when I write an algorithm that solves a test case. Although my day job is primarily "application level" JS, I am least happy when I have to do the visual things, like adding new templates with HTML/CSS. To me, design tends to be too subjective (if I'm going to do it, I'd much rather have someone provide me with a design PSD), and it tends to feel monotonous/tedious. I guess that's why I'm considering moving more into back-end development.

[technomancy]

I wonder how much of this is because they are simply new to the field. Front-end stuff is more immediate, and immediacy is appealing. Back-end stuff has you spending less time worrying about compatibility headaches and all the non-problem-solving rabbit trails, but if you haven't spent a lot of time programming, you might not realize this and just assume that the level of headaches doesn't vary much.

[collyw]

Thats what I thought. Front End involves knowing a lot of quirks between browsers / css / JS and I find it a lot less about solving problems in an abstract way. Instead its solving "why does this display this way one one machine and another way on that machine" problems.

[collyw]

Agreed. Its only one you work with the various different technologies available on both front end and back end that you realise what a mess the front end landscape is, and how much less pleasurable it is to work with. A beginner isn't going to notice the difference a they are likely just happy to get something to work

[k__]

I have the feeling there is a bigger need of front-end devs. After you got your API set up, you need shiny stuff and creating this is time consuming.

Also non-technical people seem to value front-end development more, because they have the feeling these devs do more "user specific" stuff (-> "they understand what I want")

I marketing myself as a front-end developer, but I would consider the jobs I get offered full-stack (2/3 front-end, 1/3 back-end)