These Ask HN's can really be a crap shoot.
Ask HN: When did the terms Front-End, Back-End, and Full-Stack become prevalent?
1 point by ncarlson 2 hours ago | past | web | discuss
Ask HN: How can I self-publish talks like InfoQ? (Software question)
1 point by ncarlson 1531 days ago | past | web
Ask HN: How do I prevent repetitive strain injury (RSI)?
1 point by ncarlson 1832 days ago | past | web
Ask HN: Is it just me, or are HN comments becoming more and more negative?
74 points by ncarlson 2497 days ago | past | web | 157 comments
I seem to remember that people were already using "front-end" and "back-end" in the 1980s when "client/server" computing was the big trend of the times. The front-end clients were GUI applications running on PCs and the back-end servers were mainframes or minicomputers. Some programmers worked on both, some programmers specialized on one or the other. Just like today.
The use of "front-end" in computing probably originated from its much earlier usage to mean the front part of some machine or vehicle, e.g., front-end loader, front-end alignment, etc.