[zaryaf]

I was exactly in your shoes a year ago. I am a self-taught developer and I completely empathize with the pain and intimidation of open source, and the frustration of defining and breaking down a personal project.

The answer to your question, the idea spot is somewhere in between. Yes, you need to know data structures/algo because there is only so far you can go if that's all you know. I am a very strong believer in "learn as you go" and "pull information as needed". Many people start out learning the fundamentals but forget what they learned because they didn't put it into practice. So my recommendation would be to keep building things and your portfolio, while challenging yourself to also learn the fundamentals as needed for your project.