Op told a story about his dad, who was a cool guy. My dad was like him too. OP also said he's like his dad because nix goes over his head. That's where I disagree. I think op feels that way only because op doesn't know enough category theory.

I also feel my dad doesn't understand or value abstract things because his Romanian communist math education - as an engineer - fell short of category theory. If he knew categories, we could connect about many more things, but he does not, and this is a massive disconnect that makes my dad unable to apply abstract math to the real world

I was projecting that onto op and suggesting the best we can do is to not be short sighted like our fathers. I self-taught category Theory after dropping out from the math program two times. It changed my life, and let me enjoy math again after burnout and homelessness. And it opened my eyes to many applications of math I never knew about.

My suggestion is that if op learns category theory and the functorial semantics of programming languages, systems like nix will become usable, instead of imposing.

And I am not wrong