Kind of a weak contribution to the overall thread but...
Early in my career Rails really felt a little too magical. It did what I wanted but I didn't understand it at the fundamentals.
Then I broke down how ActiveRecord worked. I listed all of its functions and capabilities and wrote my own version of ActiveRecord to do the same things. Immediately the whole thing clicked.
Nowadays I would probably be able to get away with reading the code, but back then it was tremendously helpful.
Early in my career Rails really felt a little too magical. It did what I wanted but I didn't understand it at the fundamentals.
Then I broke down how ActiveRecord worked. I listed all of its functions and capabilities and wrote my own version of ActiveRecord to do the same things. Immediately the whole thing clicked.
Nowadays I would probably be able to get away with reading the code, but back then it was tremendously helpful.