[kayman]

I feel like development has come full circle. Initially, it was all server side.

Then we had to use javascript to do some frontend stuff.

The javascript became frameworks which templated some of the patterns to make the frontend dev easier (led by React and Angular)

Frameworks like Blazor and Phoenix/Elixir are bringing the frontend dev back to serverside.

[danjac]

There's a bit more to frontend than knowledge of a framework. I can find my way around a Vue or React codebase, and I'm reasonably competent with CSS and associated frameworks, but there's a deep knowledge of the DOM and vanilla APIs, W3 standards, accessibility, device and browser differences and so on that really make a good frontend developer stand out. Often it's the frontend dev in the room - not the UI/UX experts - who calls out accessibility and usability concerns, as they've spent years working in the nuts and bolts of UI/UX.

If you moved to full server-side tomorrow and used Phoenix/Hotwire/HTMX/whatever, these skills would still be invaluable.

[zarzavat]

Frontend/backend is a speed of light issue. As long as the speed of light remains constant (and I've not heard any plans to change it) there will be a need to a have some code on the client and some code on the server.

[isoskeles]

Can you expound on this idea a bit? I don't get what you mean, but it sounds possibly interesting.