I don’t need to get down to bare metal
but I like to have a good sense of
how/why things work they way the do.
Node.js on its own is quite low level. I do recommend you spend a day playing around with the http module on its own before moving onto connect.
Express builds on top of connect so if you spend a few days playing around with connect and then “upgrade” to express you can start using express without feeling like it’s doing all kinds of magic.
All express will offer you from there onwards a nice routing API and a view engine.
Possibly pertinent: I’ve worked with
JavaScript and some libraries (jQuery,
Dojo, Raphaeljs, ESRI) for a few years
now so I’m not completely js
uninitiated.
It’s important to come into node with strong JavaScript skills because it makes the learning curve a lot more manageable. The important thing to learn is the asynchronous style of programming (and not making a mess of you code!)