Backend development

Stage 1 of 7 · 10 lessons · ~6 months

Your language and how HTTP works

Get fluent in one backend language and its runtime, and learn exactly what happens between a client and your server. Everything later in this roadmap sits on these two things.

Start: The terminal and Git

Lessons· one lesson for each topic, in this order

  1. 1The terminal and Git
  2. 2JavaScript essentials
  3. 3TypeScript types and strict mode
  4. 4Modules and npm packages
  5. 5Promises and async/await
  6. 6The event loop
  7. 7DNS: from a name to an address
  8. 8TCP connections and TLS
  9. 9HTTP requests, responses and headers
  10. 10HTTP methods and status codes

Start with· follow one of these

  • CoursePaid
    Grokking JavaScript Fundamentals

    Design Gurus · Beginner · $50

    JavaScript itself in a sensible order: scope, closures, promises and async code

  • GuideFree
    Node.js Learn

    OpenJS Foundation · Beginner

    Official guides on the event loop, async work, the http module and environment variables

Practise

  • Exercism

    Your language track: small exercises with free mentor feedback on idiomatic code

Keep handy

  • The TypeScript Handbook

    Read Everyday Types and Narrowing first, then keep it open while you write TypeScript

  • MDN Web Docs

    Read the HTTP overview, methods, headers and status code pages until they feel obvious

Also worth your time

Before moving on: Write a small TypeScript command line tool with tests using the built-in node:test runner, push it to GitHub in sensible commits, and explain every line of output from curl -v against a real website.

Tauseef's advice
Learn JavaScript properly before TypeScript, then turn on strict mode and never turn it off. Understand the event loop early: most slow Node services are blocking it with synchronous work somebody did not notice.

Mark this stage as not done?