By default, most programmers from two decades ago ARE full stack developers.
Back then, there was no separation of front end, back end or database - it was all melded into one, so if I wanted to write an app, I would have to learn the language, figure out how to display the data and collect user input from the screen, write the data tables and the code to update it etc. etc.
There was no question of learning SQL or raw file system I/O to manipulate data - there was no ORM or framework to fall back on. Until Windows came along, there was no standard on UI or UX principles. It was all 'build it as you go'.
Some of those older habits die hard. Though I use ORMs almost all the time now, I still find myself experimenting with queries in raw SQL before translating them to my ORM of choice. I still have a hard time separating my front end code, or the design elements thereof, for someone else to do, because I am so used to doing it myself.
Somehow, I still feel the need for ownership of all aspects of my application stack, and will often spend an inordinate amount of time learning about something that I am not familiar with. As I said before, Old habits die hard.
So, while I don't often refer to myself as a 'full stack developer', I do routinely say that I 'do it all, including making the coffee and sweeping the floor in the server room'.
Yes! Thank you. I never know what to call myself. I just signed a comment as "broad-spectrum software developer", but your description is more accurate.
We catch the things that fall between the cracks; we are the glue that binds together the things that fall apart; we are the toolmakers, the automaters, the pinch-hitter sysadmins; we are problem solvers, the ones that do whatever it takes - and if we don't know how, we learn.
Exactly right. Back in the day you had to know a lot more to get stuff done. You didn't have databases as a service with built in public APIs, authentication, etc.
Younger devs have it made in that regard. And the amount of tutorials and quality are amazing these days. They do have a lot more technologies to learn though.
Full stack is just new age lingo, and sure why not. We say AI (shudder) these days instead of ML, we say devops instead of sysadmin, we say cloud instead of vps/hosting.
Times change and so does language, true to any old fart out there, and the old farts to be.
Apparently the new hotness is AI. The last five years have seen titles with similar(ish) roles evolve from Data Scientist -> ML Engineer -> AI Engineer
I studied AI back in the 1990s, but these days it seems to be called ML everywhere. To me, ML sounds like the new hot name (of course it existed back then, but it was less commonly used).
No, no, that's just today speak for "systems developer". Really, someone who can dev/debug run-times for any languages, write C10K networking code, write good Haskell code, do wonders with average SQL RDBMSes, suffer through JS, and put together a complete solution.
I actually like the term "full stack developer". I take it to mean: can handle anything from assembly to HLL and everything in between.
I always took "full stack" to imply web stack, like MEAN or LAMP. Maybe I'm misusing it, but I tend to call myself a full stack developer and I don't know a lot about assembly or low-level languages like C.
It's such an insufficient title when your product is a robot and the database is closer to the top of the stack than bottom. I gave up on titles a few years ago when I began to realise that so much of it feels fitting of the dot com era but not today.
It's a thing, isn't it? I mean, as words and phrases go, it at least means something, like not just front-end, back-end, or client-side view-model reducer mapping specialist. AI is much close to fully content-free.
I've jokingly referred to myself as "full stack from transistors upwards" - I've done (professionally) a little bit of everything all the way from chip design to web server administration.
Back then, there was no separation of front end, back end or database - it was all melded into one, so if I wanted to write an app, I would have to learn the language, figure out how to display the data and collect user input from the screen, write the data tables and the code to update it etc. etc.
There was no question of learning SQL or raw file system I/O to manipulate data - there was no ORM or framework to fall back on. Until Windows came along, there was no standard on UI or UX principles. It was all 'build it as you go'.
Some of those older habits die hard. Though I use ORMs almost all the time now, I still find myself experimenting with queries in raw SQL before translating them to my ORM of choice. I still have a hard time separating my front end code, or the design elements thereof, for someone else to do, because I am so used to doing it myself.
Somehow, I still feel the need for ownership of all aspects of my application stack, and will often spend an inordinate amount of time learning about something that I am not familiar with. As I said before, Old habits die hard.
So, while I don't often refer to myself as a 'full stack developer', I do routinely say that I 'do it all, including making the coffee and sweeping the floor in the server room'.