It seems as if full stack web development is more popular these days than someone who just focuses on backend, just on frontend, etc. Perhaps it's just the people that I'm exposed to? I would assume that in larger corporations, people would be more pigeonholed. I was just curious how that works with AJAX and javascript basically touching on the UI as well as the backend. Do the people who typically do front-end javascript also weigh in on technical SEO? Just curious how those organizations that are more than one person work!
Dani 5,664 The Queen of DaniWeb Administrator Featured Poster
jkon 738 Posting Whiz in Training Featured Poster
I will talk only from my experience and what I see. It's an interesting topic, and I also would like to know what other people think about it.
I believe there is a rise in "full stack" development as a healthy reaction to virtual DOM frameworks (React, Vue, etc.) being used everywhere. Don't get me wrong, those frameworks are great for what they are built for, but those are fringe cases compared to what is typically done through web apps. Using them when the client is not the source of truth is like changing what you need to nail because you have a different hammer.
There aren't any studies that I know of that show the percentages of SPA/PWA web apps that use a virtual DOM framework compared to those that don't. In my experience, most real-life SPA web apps (banks, e-commerce, reservations, eShops, etc.) don't use them, and there is even a trend to "de-React-ify" on those who did. Most of those web apps create the main view server-side and update what is needed through AJAX, and then the URL (if needed). That is a technique that has been in use for more than 15 years now.
Some years ago, we started using websockets through a shared worker (or a private web worker if the browser doesn't support it) with AJAX only as a fallback. That allowed us to also have bidirectional updates in cases where you need some of the display data to be almost "real-time."
SEO, in my point of view, starts with how the web app is built: from the architecture, its web core vitals performance, and how it empowers the content management department to define and then change what is needed for a successful SEO strategy. Those include URLs, meta tags, content, and many more. I don't think it is feasible for the programmer or the R&D department to be responsible for that. That is why I always say that a programmer alone is not a finished product for the open market. In our case, even if we are a small company, content management is part of the sales and demand department, and the communication/demands to R&D should always be written (should...).
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