Hi,
I think that in nix-pills, nixos wiki and the nixos manual we lack a beginner friendly resource that helps to get off the ground with actual hands-on development of derivations. This is not because the necessary information is not available at all, but rather because it’s spread over various chapters and pages, which makes it a bit less accessible and harder to combine as a novice reader.
Here is my attempt at explaining some basic tools and approaches with a little bit more hand-holding:
https://github.com/d-goldin/nix-drv-debug-1p/blob/4b5339c0911af5022159ccfd897a0e5019f44a87/how_to_troubleshoot_derivations.md
I’d be curious to hear your thoughts, additions, feedback (ideally as a PR) and whether you think something like this might be useful and could possibly find a good home in one of our existing resources.
/dima