That was more of a general example rather than personal practice. I completely agree when you say using proven design patterns makes you more confident, just th

That was more of a general example rather than personal practice. I completely agree when you say using proven design patterns makes you more confident, just the other day I was implementing something I read from Design Patterns for Ruby. What I'm more curious about is whether I should stay the course to try to become an intermediate Ruby programmer or try to learn some basic computer science stuff, since everything I know about programming comes from Ruby related books. Not just half pay online tutorials, but "real" ones like "Meta-programming for Ruby" and "Ruby Way." At least from what I can tell, they are one of the most advanced Ruby books around.