Hi everyone.

I've been playing 5e for a while, ever since I found a group that I enjoy playing with a while back. One of the players asked me a question about rules that I answered, but I realized I used some logic that I don't remember where I heard it from. I used to play 3.5 a lot and lurk on the 3.5 forums on this site, and I thought I read somewhere that the priority for conflicting rulings in that edition was that "Specific beats Generic", or some similar saying. I.e. that if you have an overall rule, and then a more specific rule conflicts with that rule, the more specific rule takes priority over the generic ruling and should be followed. My questions about this are as follows:

1) Is this still a relevant ruling in 5e (if it ever was in 3.5, like I said my memory of where I read this is hazy at best).

2) If so, should I take this at face value or are there exceptions to this rule? Are there any common misconceptions about how to handle this rule that I should be aware of?