I can understand the authors frustrations. I too have worked with loads of full-stack developers that have been fairly standard at both, or people that market themselves as full-stack, but are either Ruby/Python developers that can throw together a React app, or front-end wizards that can barely navigate enough Rails to build a basic CRUD app.
Where the idea falls flat is where you draw the lines in each discipline. Do you expect a front-end developer to have domain knowledge of all the leading frameworks out today? Do you expect them to be immediately productive on an Node/Express project? Additionally, on the back-end side, would you expect that person to have written production-ready code in a set of languages like Ruby, Python, C# and so, with full domain knowledge of all their respective frameworks? There are front-end devs that know a huge amount on the frontend side, and backend devs with working knowledge in a whole range of languages, but it's difficult to find a (sane) person that knows it all.
But, if you're a Rails shop, it's not uncommon for someone to know Rails really well, and be a solid frontend developer. If Ruby/Rails is your bag then that person is a full-stack developer, even though they might be completely useless if you're a .NET shop. Using myself as an example, I was fairly solid on the front-end, but as I got more involved with back-end dev I found my domain knowledge falling behind. I reckon I could throw together a halfway-decent front-end application, alongside a Rails/Django/ASP.NET MVC application, but I'd feel uncomfortable calling myself a full-stack developer because I don't consider myself good enough to know it all.
I'd be doing myself and a future employer a disservice by selling myself as such, but it doesn't mean that people don't, especially more controlling developers that want control over every aspect of an application.
Where the idea falls flat is where you draw the lines in each discipline. Do you expect a front-end developer to have domain knowledge of all the leading frameworks out today? Do you expect them to be immediately productive on an Node/Express project? Additionally, on the back-end side, would you expect that person to have written production-ready code in a set of languages like Ruby, Python, C# and so, with full domain knowledge of all their respective frameworks? There are front-end devs that know a huge amount on the frontend side, and backend devs with working knowledge in a whole range of languages, but it's difficult to find a (sane) person that knows it all.
But, if you're a Rails shop, it's not uncommon for someone to know Rails really well, and be a solid frontend developer. If Ruby/Rails is your bag then that person is a full-stack developer, even though they might be completely useless if you're a .NET shop. Using myself as an example, I was fairly solid on the front-end, but as I got more involved with back-end dev I found my domain knowledge falling behind. I reckon I could throw together a halfway-decent front-end application, alongside a Rails/Django/ASP.NET MVC application, but I'd feel uncomfortable calling myself a full-stack developer because I don't consider myself good enough to know it all.
I'd be doing myself and a future employer a disservice by selling myself as such, but it doesn't mean that people don't, especially more controlling developers that want control over every aspect of an application.