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Comment by kin | Hacker News Reader

What I saw as a plus was that they combined front/back end teams into a single unit.

Am I the only person who doesn't believe this story? Because really, the whole reason we have front-end/back-end specialists is because front-end javascript ninjas can't learn RUBY??!?

It's believable to me. The whole reason we have front-end/back-end specialist isn't because front-end js people can't learn Ruby but rather it's the same reason why front-end/back-end is separated code-wise.

Depending on how they're using node they could very well keep this segregation. But some implementations with node have server/client sharing code. I know I've seen examples of this. I imagine that's how they're doing things.

I don't think it's about the language - it's about knowledge. A backend specialist can learn Javascript but may not know the nuances of working with the DOM, or optimizing for pagespeed, or the important front end libraries. Similarly, a front-end specialist may not have all the experience necessary to diagnose problems in a deployment. That's one reason I don't buy the "front end developers can now do backend development because of node.js" argument. Any sufficient competent backend developer can start writing Python code in a day. What that developer doesn't get in a day is understanding deployments, popular Python libraries, the ecosystem, etc.

I'm not saying they've removed specialists. I believe they still exist. But in switching to node, because client/server shares a language, they're now capable of sharing code as well. Which is what I imagine they are doing, which is why it's logical that they've merged teams. This doesn't rule out that front/back-end specialists are removed and become well-rounded rather, they're just working together more.

Exactly.

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