You don't need to learn those things as early as possible. You need to learn them eventually, as you're getting closer to gaining expertise. Accidental complexity early along the road to expertise is a hinderance not a help.

The complexities of setting up a system so you can develop rails on it exist to solve problems that experts have discovered through years of working with the system, but which people coming to it fresh don't, and shouldn't need to, know that they have yet.