A lot of us are simply interested in promoting and continuing to evolve and understand that well-reasoned ideology. We feel its application can improve the human condition.
But it seems to be doing it imperatively. I’d expect something like ‘nginxConf = pkgs.file “nginx.conf”, “contents”’ instead of ‘nginxConf = pkgs.writeText “nginx.conf”, “contents”’.
Not saying the system doesn’t apply this declaratively, but I find it difficult to intuit the above is checking for a state and applying changes only if necessary.
Pick a project you’re passionate about and find a technology you’re curious to learn. Then figure out how to make it happen. You can chart your own course (and from what I’ve seen from most bootcamp project results during interviews, you probably should).
I’m a self-taught dropout - I learned how to do this to the detriment of other endeavors including my assigned coursework (which happened to be for another degree).
It sounds like you’re not doing this because you’re driven to. That’s fine, but you’ll probably struggle doing it on your own. I’m guessing those self-taught folks were just more inclined to the field.
Blame the fools who believe the misinformation (or better yet, take responsibility for publishing truth in a more compelling form). It takes two to tango, and one of these tango dancers was raised in a country where they were given a right to dance.
For many cases this is more than enough to solve some hard problems well enough.