I have written about a variety of topics around frontend and React so far. From now on, I am going to write mostly about how I have survived as a frontend developer.
What do you mean?
Being a frontend developer is hard for a number of reasons.
- The techniques keep changing
- The platforms keep changing
- The tools keep changing
- The designs keep changing
- Hype
- Complexity
- Bad advice
- Outdated advice
- The number of platforms and resolutions to support
- The number of dependencies and tools to manage (a.k.a Dependency hell)
- The number of decisions to make about techniques, tools and dependencies
- The number of technologies to master
- Interacting with users
- Interacting with other disciplines (designers, managers, testers)
- Interacting with other developers
- Browser specific bugs
I am not saying that frontend development is the hardest. Many of these issues are not specific to frontend. All I am saying is that frontend development can be hard.
So what are you going to do about it?
Over time, I have seen how some practices have helped me and my team handle the issues I listed above.
- Keeping notes
- Writing maintainable code
- Slowly refactoring legacy code
- Staying away from the bleeding edge
- Cutting down dependencies
- Improving communication
- Mastering tools
- Conducting experiments
- Preferring simplicity
- Cautiously adopting new technology and techniques
- Embracing automation (e.g. linters, formatters, automated tests, continuous deployment)
- Understanding instead of brute-forcing
- Extreme ownership
- Saying no
This is not a complete list. These practices are also not silver bullets. But they have helped with the issues mentioned above which is why I would like to share them with you.
