I started as a front-end dev, focused on that in the 2000s as this was where the work was interesting...
Now I go by back-end dev, because I just can't deal with the front-end "industry" anymore.
All the best, though.
Of course if you are into enterprise or 'web scale', things can get a bit more complicated, but it's how complicated you make it to be.
Rendering everything on the server and adding a bit of Javascript along the way works - it had its flaws, but so does everything else, you just need to figure out which flaws make sense for you to deal with. For a little extra complexity, use Vite as a bundler, and add a framework - Vue is pretty simple to get started with - and you're almost immediately away. You even get some stuff like Typescript for free at this point.
And like you say, you can make things more complicated with various other tools, but if you need that, you probably know you need that, and you know what it's doing and why it's necessary complexity.
TS is great mostly. But it definitely comes at a cost.
I'm trying nim for SPA at the moment, also thinking about some C based restful approach(civetweb, ulfius)
Why do embedded developers pick really resource-constrained chips, when decently powerful chips that can run Linux have become so cheap?
[1] probably even cheaper if purchasing B2B, in bulk
[2] i.e. should have enough CPU (1 GB) and RAM (512 MB)
I don't remember the exact numbers as I don't work with the manufacturing side but the budget for our microcontrollers was <0.5 USD per microcontroller
> Why do embedded developers pick really resource-constrained chips, when decently powerful chips that can run Linux have become so cheap?
1) Often you have multiple microcontrollers per device
2) It just follows a general trend with industrial manufacturing of always trying to find ways to cut costs. It is not just microcontrollers, after a product is finished, v2 will always strive to cut costs and be cheaper. Components costs grow linearly with production volume. If you sell a million of devices with a 5 USD chip that is 5 million dollars that could have been spent on R&D (maybe like 5 devs working on it full time for a year)
3) Sometimes the microcontrollers are dedicated for security/safety, those you don't want to run linux on because it makes them harder to QA and certify (non determinism doesn't play well with safety). You want them small, lean and as simple/dumb as possible
4) Sourcing problems, advanced chips are harder to source in higher quantities, especially lately. Crappy microcontrollers can be bought like buying legos at the lego store
5) Size, reliability and heat constraints. Bigger chips are harder to integrate into a custom board, require more power and could generate enough heat to cause problems. Integrating a Raspberry CM requires a custom connector with like 50 wires or so and wiring it can be really annoying/error-prone
One of our systems had a Raspberry CM3 before, it was the first thing on the chopping block for the v2. Apparently it was the most expensive single electronic component of the whole system.
There are other things to consider, like power consumption, size, reliability, IO... It's a totally different class of hardware.
at work, our backend is c++ and we use react without nextjs or any ssr. if we don't need it, we don't use it.
for 90% of the cases it is simple React SPA app + REST APIs , thats it and then people try to put SSR there and what not which tbh is not required even from a business pov.
It takes the joy out of things.
Although i hear folks say the same about backend , but honestly i have not done backend so cant comment about that,
planning to move though
what does that mean