A new term for what we do

I started a new part-time project a while ago where I was allowed to use the full power of thin server architecture and Dojo, where the back-end was written in PHP.

While talking about the architecture with the back-end developer (which was really impressed about the cleanness of using a SMD file to define the protocol contract between client and server) we compared experiences and realized that we were both programmers first and visual designers last, if at all.

Many times the customer or project owner have a very dim understanding of client-side development, which leads to bizarre ideas about the simplicity of implementing ideas in the browser. Most common is that JavaScript is seen as something to use as a last resort and that the entire user experience is seen as a series of 90s cardboard static HTML pages, mainly because it's simpler to conceptualize, I guess.

Working the majority of my time with web pages but never with visual design means that I need to find very advanced customers and project members who understand that there is a layer below the design, but not on the server.

And that's when the expert PHP developer I was working with (Henrik Hussfelt, no less) coined the term middle-end developer. I have never heard that before, and IMO it resonates with where I put myself in the value stack.

Could a new definition like middle-end be a tool to more precisely define the JavaScript programmers role; Not as someone who adds an event handler to a button, but someone who creates the actual client application, but not the markup template for it.