[the__alchemist]

I think a good approach to learning systems programming would be to find a piece of hardware, read through its datasheet, and attempt to implement its driver. Or program a microcontroller in rust. Or try to get "hello world" to display on a PC operate without an OS.

There are a lot of neat, and not-too-intimidating things that will give you a good appreciation of the techniques used in systems programming you don't see in other areas. Eg reading technical documentation (datasheets, Reference Manuals etc), reading and writing registers, familiarizing yourself with memory layout, and communications protocols. Writing a HAL to see how you can abstract over register writes to make high-level code.

In other words, I agree, and don't think this post's parent was gatekeeping; it's the definition I had assumed as well.