This basically says: Learn all the things! But the best front-end people I ever saw did not learn all the things. They learned a few things, mastered even fewe

This basically says: Learn all the things! But the best front-end people I ever saw did not learn all the things. They learned a few things, mastered even fewer of those things, but ultimately understood how to make what they had learned work for them to do whatever they needed to do. If anyone is reading the handbook and thinking this is too much, you'll never get through it... you're right, it is and you won't. Just learn HTML really well, CSS fairly well (and pick a tool to help manage the CSS) and learn raw JS and one of the helper systems (JQuery). That's it... get the core skills right, get those mastered, and the rest will come easily and you'll understand when and why to use them.