Ugh , i hate css and dom. Was trying to follow a tutorial for making tetris game to learn some web dev basics, and i lost halfway with all those flexbox And classlist selectors. I guess i have to read everything about dom sequentially to understand in depth.

I am a fan of bulma css though it handles such a huge amount of behaviours without us having to worry.

Can you guys give me some pointers on which topics of js should i know before starting with node, and if dom is really too much necessary?

just do the whole of
https://www.freecodecamp.org/
course

You are so lucky that you are starting now - after IE 6, Java Applets, Flash, and Silverlight are dead and the only remaining browsers all support enough of DOM and CSS3 that you don't even need JavaScript for most things anymore.
Boy was i surprised back then when i realized that you suddenly could do JS-less animated multilevel menus abusing just radiobuttons and CSS...

@Oktokolo
> the only remaining browsers

At this point we could scrap the plural s. All there is nowadays is Chrome and its gazillion derivatives and one Chrome wannabe. 😉

@VaderNT
Browsers - not browser engines.
Granted, they look pretty similar. But they definitely phone home to different sites by default and have slightly different features integrated.

That's how frontend devs are born who don't understand the basics, resort to "frameworks" instead, and create the pile of shit that is the average website.

@Oktokolo Sure, hence I said "derivatives". But dude, it's just a joke. Over the top exaggeration, winking emoji and all. Ah well.

best way I've learned for picking up the fundamentals is to make your own flashcards on the subject as you learn. That's what I'm doing and I'm learning a lot more in retaining a lot more than I did in the past.

Why do you need DOM with Node? It's not like Node.js is your endpoint for frontend anyway.

And by the way, flexbox is too comprehensive for basics. Maybe you'd like to play with absolute and relative units first?

my somewhat limited experience with node is that once you understand javascript syntax then there's not much else left to do other than dive into node itself. Tasks for the front and back end don't really have a lot in common beyond that.

Freecodecamp is good for learning the basics of web but when you get into the later stuff like es6, node, api, etc, you won't get much instruction. Still worth completing the exercises, just keep in mind that when you get to that point you'll need to refer to mdn or the like for an explanation of how to do what they're asking.

@VaderNT
My previous answer also might contain a slight trace of sarcasm.

@VaderNT And one browser that tries to take over the annoyance that used to go with IE.

@M1sf3t thanks . i was also doing the fcc js course. but deviated a little when it started getting boring. I find javascript.info as a nice site to learn js concepts sequentially. Then i again deviated and started making a mini project :p

Guess i would start with the backend now

@Fast-Nop guilty as charged. I have seen very awesome animations with those css selectors. would like to learn them someday, only the fact remains i am not much interested in making frontend websites as i am interested in coding mobile apps and their backends (again false, i am most interested right now is to get a good stable job with wlb but whatev).

Web World has got a lot of loose end points breaking here and there , but it still somehow works.
Native mobile dev world is little more stable on the frontend . But Web Frontend is the home to most hacks and breaks and special case handlings.
From what i have heard backend is the least stressful among the three, so i am rooting for that

@2Large Even with backend, at least understanding the basics of frontend will be helpful, if nothing else because it will make team communication easier.

Reminds me of the economy class in my EE studies, when we asked the prof why we had to learn this. He said, "because you will need to talk with MBAs in your jobs, and it's easier to teach engineers the basics of business administration than the other way around". ^^

@2Large learb about PWAs and something like onsen whuch is surprisingly fast and easy to get started with.