This isn't exactly answering your question, but one thing I see a lot of people get wrong is not knowing how to express what they're trying to do. An example I recently ran into would be when I was trying to enforce that an input to a function is a child class of an abstract class. If you express the problem with the right vocab you won't end up googling "how to make sure a variable is of the right type" and getting a different answer completely. I find that having taken classes and followed through books has helped me the most because the vocabulary to define my problem is ingrained in me. That's what I'd recommend the most, is increasing exposure to concepts and vocab so that it doesn't feel weird when you have to express a new problem.
I feel like this is the way. It ensures you get exposed to multiple paradigms and can help you easily switch to a language that's more invested in one paradigm.
I get wanting to just do it yourself. That's part of why I asked the question because I want to be able to design my own algorithmic art pieces.