How would you turn a back end developer into a front end developer?

I have a problem.
I am under pressure to take some back end devs, or complete novices and train them up to become good front end developers. I'mso not a trainer. I get frustrated at people for not knowing already.

This of course is supposed to take no time at all, because front end development is easy, whereas .net coding is hard, right? (Never mind that they are doing this because the professional front end developer at our design agency produces consistently shit code, or that the reason I can do it so much better is that I spent 15 years getting really fucking good. It doesn't seem to compute.)

My own opinion is that you either possess the creative brain, with the scepticism, enquiry, curiosity and initiative to be a front end developer, or you think in procedures, inputs and outputs and so are a back end developer. Therefore I reckon it is unlikely or impossible to find someone from our back end devs who will be a)interested, and b)any good.

I'd love to be wrong, as it would make this less of a poisoned chalice, so how do I go about making back end devs care about the front end? How do I distill 15 years of knowledge into a couple of weeks? Where should I tell them to look before we start?

Good luck with that. I can happily write java code all day. But show me some css and ask me to create some bendy corners that look the same in all browsers and I want to cry. You could introduce them to jQuery and trick them into thinking that front end development is really as exciting as back end coding.

Err, isn't this the London Fixed Gear and Single Speed forum?

Stack Overflow is that way ->

;-)

fnarr fnarr

I have a problem.I am under pressure to take some back end devs, or complete novices and train them up to become good front end developers. I'mso not a trainer. I get frustrated at people for not knowing already.

This of course is supposed to take no time at all, because front end development is easy, whereas .net coding is hard, right? (Never mind that they are doing this because the professional front end developer at our design agency produces consistently shit code, or that the reason I can do it so much better is that I spent 15 years getting really fucking good. It doesn't seem to compute.)

My own opinion is that you either possess the creative brain, with the scepticism, enquiry, curiosity and initiative to be a front end developer, or you think in procedures, inputs and outputs and so are a back end developer. Therefore I reckon it is unlikely or impossible to find someone from our back end devs who will be a)interested, and b)any good.

I'd love to be wrong, as it would make this less of a poisoned chalice, so how do I go about making back end devs care about the front end? How do I distill 15 years of knowledge into a couple of weeks? Where should I tell them to look before we start?

At my place, a new starter is usually sat next to either me or one of the other front end devs and we basically let them get as much done as possible and explain the rest via examples ... or just talk them through it.

However I am not an outstanding front end dev, I am just an all rounder, I spend 50% of my time writing SQL Stored Procedures and VB.

In terms of CSS, once someone understands the box model, what an block/inline element, how floats work and different types of position, usually they can muddle through the rest.

In terms of Javascript, I have learnt it via fixing bugs in current scripts I find to be best.

Err, isn't this the London Fixed Gear and Single Speed forum?

Stack Overflow is that way ->

;-)

Misc & Meaningless innit

EDIT: Fuck it could not get my point across as clearly as I wanted.

As an x-backend coder, I tried the whole front end... just ended up wanting to kill someone.

It really does require someone who is artistic (or autistic ? :P) rather than logical imho.
Now that said, if you have the layouts already done and it's just a case of slicing up and making the webpage appear, most people should be able to that.

BQ - how do you get any of this developing done, you just sit and post on here all day?

My own opinion is that you either possess the creative brain, with the scepticism, enquiry, curiosity and initiative to be a front end developer, or you think in procedures, inputs and outputs and so are a back end developer.

I dabble in front end design, and am trying to learn back end and finding it impossible, because procedures inputs and outputs makes no sense to me.
So I hope you can find some way to make it work, but sadly I have no useful insight

You just need to use one of those long allen socket nuts things that you get with Shimano breaks to turn a back end one into a front end one.

Technically i've no clue. But from a designers point of view I think you'll struggle. I've worked with fantastic front enders doing pixel perfect builds in all browsers, and utter shit back enders hacking out shit where the grid / baseline / everything is all over the place

I think you have to be dead keen to do pixel perfect stuff to be any good, and if you don't have any passion / interest in that you'll never be good, or at least struggle a lot. If you have no interest in following a grid or can appreciate the reason it exists, I think you should stick to the back end.

I am under pressure to take some back end devs, or complete novices and train them up to become good front end developers.

Train me. I will tell them, that you are good.

Whenever you say front end i think of fannies

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