For context: I work on large-scale browser apps that are closer in complexity to something like Linear or Obsidian than to your standard WordPress blog with some forms. E.g I'm currently working on a browser-based GIS tool for the financial sector.
I started my career as a full-stack developer, but went all-in on frontend because I felt I was spreading myself too thin. At one point I found that I could choose to be almost good enough at doing two different things or extremely good at one thing. I chose the latter option.
Modern browser apps are complex beasts, at least if you want to do them right. You obviously have to worry about all the technical bits --- HTML, CSS, JavaScript, your view library of choice, platform APIs like <canvas> and WebAudio, cross browser testing, bundle sizes, performance optimizations, techniques like optimistic rendering, all that good stuff.
On top of that, you also need to work closely with designers to make sure they know the features and limitations of the platform(s) they're designing for. More often than not, you end up being a sort of bridge between the backend devs, designers, and product managers.
A lot of times you end up doing design too, whether you like it or not. I've learned a lot about UI/UX design just because I often have to fill in the gaps where a designer forgot to include a certain error state, or didn't test their design on tablet screens, or didn't account for cases where a certain API might not be available.
I tried for many years to learn as much as I could about Django as well as React and friends. But it eventually got too much. I found that I wasn't able to keep up with both ecosystems, and I was producing code that wasn't very good. I could certainly build things quickly because I was familiar with all parts of the stack, but it came at the cost of code quality, security, stability, and robustness. I eventually decided to hang up my backend developer hat and focus exclusively on what goes on inside the browser (which can be a lot by itself these days!)
It's probably possible for a single individual to build a high-quality server-rendered MPA with some forms without making a mess of it. But that says more about how good Rails/Django/Laravel are than about the capabilities of any single individual. I don't think a single person could build a product like Linear end-to-end without cutting corners.
IMO the fact that being a full-stack dev is so taxing is an indication that the stack as a whole is just way too complex and overengineered. Which is rather obvious from looking at the state of affairs on the frontend side of things. Desktop GUI devs don't usually have those problems.
Thing is, even when web apps are essentially used as desktop app replacement (Electron etc), all the complexity discussed here is still there.
As far as looking OS-native, this is (unfortunately) increasingly less relevant as OSes themselves drop desktop UX consistency even internally. But that aside, Qt is still around and is a very mature framework for "near native" UI, and then there's Avalonia and others. Even Gtk is surprisingly decent on Windows these days. Although I'm not sure what this all has to do with the original subject, since web apps most certainly don't look native anywhere.
I don't think the claim is that a single developer should be able to build an entire enterprise product, but rather that a single developer should be able to implement the software side of a task end-to-end. The latter is a reasonable expectation when your software is monolithic.
> ... I don't think a single person could build a product like Linear end-to-end without cutting corners.
Cutting corners is a feature. I bet the Linear team is as pained as any, internally, at the tradeoffs they're making.
There is no way to know "what to get right" without going through it. So for 80% of the dev cycle the job is to cut corners to get to the 80/20, rinse and repeat forever.
This isn't against excellence and the dream of a beautiful product experience as your reply seems to convey.
I started my career as a full-stack developer, but went all-in on frontend because I felt I was spreading myself too thin. At one point I found that I could choose to be almost good enough at doing two different things or extremely good at one thing. I chose the latter option.
Modern browser apps are complex beasts, at least if you want to do them right. You obviously have to worry about all the technical bits --- HTML, CSS, JavaScript, your view library of choice, platform APIs like <canvas> and WebAudio, cross browser testing, bundle sizes, performance optimizations, techniques like optimistic rendering, all that good stuff.
On top of that, you also need to work closely with designers to make sure they know the features and limitations of the platform(s) they're designing for. More often than not, you end up being a sort of bridge between the backend devs, designers, and product managers.
A lot of times you end up doing design too, whether you like it or not. I've learned a lot about UI/UX design just because I often have to fill in the gaps where a designer forgot to include a certain error state, or didn't test their design on tablet screens, or didn't account for cases where a certain API might not be available.
I tried for many years to learn as much as I could about Django as well as React and friends. But it eventually got too much. I found that I wasn't able to keep up with both ecosystems, and I was producing code that wasn't very good. I could certainly build things quickly because I was familiar with all parts of the stack, but it came at the cost of code quality, security, stability, and robustness. I eventually decided to hang up my backend developer hat and focus exclusively on what goes on inside the browser (which can be a lot by itself these days!)
It's probably possible for a single individual to build a high-quality server-rendered MPA with some forms without making a mess of it. But that says more about how good Rails/Django/Laravel are than about the capabilities of any single individual. I don't think a single person could build a product like Linear end-to-end without cutting corners.