A full-stack approach

Learning to use ASP.NET Core and Angular together means being able to work with both the front-end (client side) and back-end (server side) of a web application; to put it in other words, it means being able to design, assemble, and deliver a complete product.

Eventually, in order to do that, we’ll need to dig through the following:

• Back-end programming
• Front-end programming
• UI styling and UX design
• Database design, modeling, configuration, and administration
• Web server configuration and administration
• Web application deployment

At first glance, it can seem that this kind of approach goes against common sense; a single developer should not be allowed to do everything by themselves. Every developer knows that the back-end and the front-end require entirely different skills and experience, so why in the world should we do that?

Before answering this question, we should understand what we really mean when we say being able to. We don’t have to become experts on every single layer of the stack; no one expects us to. When we choose to embrace the full-stack approach, what we really need to do is raise our awareness level throughout the whole stack we’re working on; this means that we need to know how the back-end works, and how it can and will be connected to the front-end. We need to know how the data will be stored, retrieved, and then served through the client. We need to acknowledge the interactions we will need to layer out between the various components that our web application is made from, and we need to be aware of security concerns, authentication mechanisms, optimization strategies, load balancing techniques, and so on.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that we have to have strong skills in all these areas; as a matter of fact, we hardly ever will. Nonetheless, if we want to pursue a full-stack approach, we need to understand the meaning, role, and scope of all of them. Furthermore, we should be able to work our way through any of these fields whenever we need to.