In short: you are right.
To add a few more words.
I have been payed for coding, designing architectures and analysing problems for 25+ years. After 20+, I went back to the university to check if I am wrong or all the others - may call it "an inverse impostor syndrome". I got MSc, went on with PhD and during that time, I finally met with the fundamentals that explained why my mantras worked along the years.
Like "structure eats code" means that we actually write information systems to understand a situation, learn to write a capable interactive model - or in academic terms, transfer our current knowledge to a Turing Machine only to extract a network of clean state machines, the process is called "refactor".
Or: "I want to make my mistakes, not other people's mistakes" means the fundamental statement of information science: information is the noise. The things we did not know about the system. And we are there to make and understand different noise because from that knew understanding emerges.
Etc, etc. Information science is an absolute gem, but it takes a lot of experience to understand...
To be more specific and add Google compatible keywords.
Understand the design patterns, they will work in any environment. Take the original Gang of Four materials.
Check "Tracer Bullet Development" and other core ideas from The Pragmatic Programmer. That works.
Listen to old guys, they did the same thing before the current "big names" appeared. Recommended: Bob Martin, Alan Kay.
And if you think you know enough, you can start learning about the heavy stuff. Start with Bret Victor's Future of Programming lecture, https://youtu.be/8pTEmbeENF4 Then learn about those who he mentions: Sutherland, Engelbart, Licklider, Bush. They are the real deal.
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