This is a case of worrying too much about what an irrelevant class of people thinks. Are you good at what you do? Do your peers understand your skills? Do your clients or potential clients see the value in your ability? As a primarily back end developer, that's what I care about, and I think it's a good metric.
It's natural and not necessarily wrong to look for approval, but at the end of the day, you need to judge yourself on your own ability. Other people will judge you, whether you want them to or not, but if you take them seriously -- whether they like you or not -- you have put your self-image in the wrong hands, i.e. not yours.
I'm inclined to say "yes". I am a front-end developer, working on everything from HTML/CSS + JS to the RoR app (controller & views, mostly. Rarely do I make changes to models, but I do poke in there to see how certain things are implemented, etc.)
Perhaps if you had asked "are front-end engineers really 'engineers'?", I would be inclined to answer "No".
So, yes, I think anyone can be a developer. The bar for becoming a developer isn't much higher than being able to open a web browser and perhaps search Google. For example, if you want to create an e-commerce site then there are lots of hosted services which will set one up for little to no cost.
At the end of the day, you are either reaching your goals or you aren't. Compare an grandmother who can barely figure out the internet but makes a healthy income off selling items online (perhaps things she has made which and have gained a following) and a ninja engineer who has been mired in feature creep for three years and still isn't close to getting his start-up off the ground (and probably never will)
A person who does not have any development skills is not a developer. The ability to hire developers does not make one a developer. If I hire someone to play some Rachmaninoff for me, am I a pianist?
> For example, if you want to create an e-commerce site then there are lots of hosted services which will set one up for little to no cost.
If you rent a hosted service with an off the shelf e-commerce site that is automatically installed by your hosting provider, you are not a developer, you are someone who has instructed a hosting company to set up an e-commerce site.
Now, you don't need to have any development skills to run a successful online business, that much is true. But you do need development skills to be an actual developer.
So, this is a silly question. ;) Personally, if I'm making a profit (assuming that's my goal) then I could care less what you call me. I'm creating value where there was none before.
Well that's something we can certainly agree on :)
I don't see how the fact that this code runs in a browser would somehow make front-end people "not developers".
Is coding up GUI's for native mobile or traditional desktop apps also "not development"?
However, I believe a traditional developer can jump into the frontend faster than a frontend developer can move into backend development. It doesn't mean it'll look good, but a designer can help here.
Frontend development seems to revolve around dealing with finickiness, rather than dealing with sound software construction. That may be changing. And I myself a jumping into the frontend a bit more - if only to better convey my thoughts to the real frontend guys.
Sure, HTML isn't that hard, but when you're dealing with cross-browser issues, supporting legacy browsers and then writing hundreds of lines of JavaScript you appreciate that it can be really hard work!