> I'm not "formally" trained in software engineering and am primarily self-taught
Welcome to the club and I wouldn't be too worried about it (but definitely read and learn what others have figured out).
Software design and development is still an unsolved problem. The industry has not collectively found a foundational set of standard practices that apply across the board other than some of the most basic (e.g. organization is good).
You can tell that it's not solved by the relentless flow of industry trends that become the new "best practice" until some years later when we figure out "well, that approach has these pros and these cons and tends to fit with these types of problems, but definitely not a silver bullet, let's try the next thing"
Regarding your specific issue on your new project: just be pragmatic, get it working and learn from your decisions, it's all just a collection of pros and cons and the analysis of pro vs con changes depending on the angle you look at it (e.g. short term vs long term, slow changing environment vs fast changing environment, cost to value ratio, etc., etc., etc.)
Welcome to the club and I wouldn't be too worried about it (but definitely read and learn what others have figured out).
Software design and development is still an unsolved problem. The industry has not collectively found a foundational set of standard practices that apply across the board other than some of the most basic (e.g. organization is good).
You can tell that it's not solved by the relentless flow of industry trends that become the new "best practice" until some years later when we figure out "well, that approach has these pros and these cons and tends to fit with these types of problems, but definitely not a silver bullet, let's try the next thing"
Regarding your specific issue on your new project: just be pragmatic, get it working and learn from your decisions, it's all just a collection of pros and cons and the analysis of pro vs con changes depending on the angle you look at it (e.g. short term vs long term, slow changing environment vs fast changing environment, cost to value ratio, etc., etc., etc.)