> I ultimately think learning how other people structure programs is an enriching task

Learning from others is great. But there should be actually something to learn. When someone says

  so long as you're not writing the code or specifying exactly how it should work.

It means they’re not creating software. They’re just playing with randomly generating something.

A software is the recipe for some process. The code is the formal version where everything is exhaustively specified. Not thinking about the code means you’ve stopped thinking about the software somewhere and no longer can say if it’s ok or not.