u/m_null_

I've been into cars for years, and the thing that always annoyed me is how hard it is to learn this stuff as a beginner. Most of what's online is either a top 10 list or a forum thread where everyone already knows the lingo, and asking a basic question feels like a quick way to get roasted.

So I built Carcademy. It starts at the very beginning -

• How an engine works, explained like a normal person would
• What all the drivetrain, suspension, and transmission jargon means
• Why two cars with nearly identical specs can feel totally different to drive
• How to read a spec sheet and tell what's marketing from what matters

From there it gets into the deeper tech and the history. I wasn't trying to make people memorize a pile of facts. I wanted it to click why cars ended up the way they did. The rough idea is - start with zero knowledge, end up being the friend people text before they buy a car (heh, don't blame me if they don't).

There's no signup or paywall. I made it mostly because I wanted something like this when I was starting out and couldn't find it.

I'd really appreciate feedback from people who know this way better than me - tell me what I missed or got wrong.

Hi all,

Nodebook's Volume 2 is now available to read online.

There have been a couple of changes to the curriculum. I've pushed the chapters on worker threads and child processes down to Volume 3, and moved the networking chapters - Networking Fundamentals, TLS, HTTPS & HTTP/2, and Realtime Streaming - up into Vol 2.

I've always wanted to keep this book targeted at intermediate-level Node/JS devs, but I added a networking fundamentals chapter because I feel many devs who work with Node don't really understand the underlying networking stuff.

As always, feedback is welcome.

Hi r/node,

I've (finally) finished Volume I of NodeBook - 46 chapters. This took way more time than I thought it would.

For those who haven't read it yet - it covers the lower-level Node stuff, and everything you'd need to know to become a better backend dev (or even build libraries using node). If you're using other runtimes, like Bun/Deno, you'll still learn a lot about backend development. Give it a go.

It's not for beginners. You should at-least know Javascript and somewhat comfortable with node ecosystem.

There are tons of beginner level tutorials for Node out there, many good, many bad, but they're there. If you are new, you can still read it, but it assumes you have written some Node before. My recommendation is to go through some beginner level Node tutorial, build a couple of dummy scripts, and you'll be good to go.

The chapters are public here: https://www.thenodebook.com

The book will forever stay free online. I have some plans for a digital edition, probably by the end of next month.

GitHub repo: https://github.com/ishtms/nodebook