Around 5 years ago, I set up my first virtual server as a place to run some of my Discord bots and other projects. I went into it knowing only very little about system administration and using Linux, but soon after, Linux became my operating system of choice for everyday activities. My interaction with the server was pretty infrequent after the initial setup – I pretty much only logged in whenever there was a new thing I wanted to add to the list of software running on it, or if I had to troubleshoot something. I ran almost all the software on it through Docker compose, and for applications that needed to accept incoming connections from the Internet, I copied and pasted some nginx config and ran certbot for TLS.

"What a year, huh?"

As I dive deeper into using Nix for my own software as opposed to "just" using NixOS to configure my systems, I recently found myself wanting to package a Clojure application with Nix for the first time. And since I'm one of the people who don't really see the benefit in leaving behind a working, easy-to-use tool like Leiningen for the archaic "write your own build scripts"-style of the official Clojure tooling, I needed to find a way to nixify Clojure applications that works for Leiningen-based projects.

I had like 3 blog posts lined up for last month but got stuck on two of them and didn't feel motivated enough to write the third one (yet). That means I've broken my streak of posting every month, but that's fine – it'll all come later eventually. Instead, I found out about the latest WeblogPoMo challenge via Robb and felt compelled to participate. Essentially, it's an AMA where you answer questions that other people have answered before and/or you add new ones to the pile!

When Heart of Clojure was announced earlier this year, I hesitated. I had heard the name before, and I had heard praise of the last instalment 5 years ago. One of the reasons I wasn't sure whether I should go was certainly cost, but that wasn't the main one. The main reason was anxiety. A fear of being an outsider to a group of people who already knew each other and being left to myself as a result. This wasn't particularly rational of me. Throughout the last 2 years, my introvert brain created those same "oh I don't think you'll have a good time there"-doubts for all of the decisions that led to some of the best and most memorable experiences of my life.