I have seen this before, but apparently I had not bookmarked it. Today I read the statement "As usual, the best way to figure out how something works is to get rid of the high level tools and try to do it on your own." which resonates with my experience on https://www.n16f.net/blog/building-erlang-applications-the-hard-way/
https://www.n16f.net/blog/improving-git-diffs-for-lisp/ looks useful too.