I graduated from undergrad with (essentially) a C.S. minor in 2003. Since then I've managed to pick up some practical hacking skills and projects, but I really want to take my programming to a higher level. What's the best way to do that?
FWIW, my language of choice right now is Python, which is what our startup is written in. What little I know and understand about functional programming and recursion, I enjoy, but I feel like I still don't have a very strong grasp on algorithms, performance, and what makes for truly beautiful code.
I own PG's ANSI Common Lisp and have considered studying it as part of the answer to this question.
To complicate this, a little background: I've been offered two jobs: Job A means I can code in any language I want on a really cool skunkworks project--but I would have to be entirely self-taught; Job B means I would have to code in C#.NET, but I would be surrounded by some serious nerds (OS and graphics types) that would in theory be willing to mentor me.
What would you choose, assuming compensation was the same?
FWIW, my language of choice right now is Python, which is what our startup is written in. What little I know and understand about functional programming and recursion, I enjoy, but I feel like I still don't have a very strong grasp on algorithms, performance, and what makes for truly beautiful code.
I own PG's ANSI Common Lisp and have considered studying it as part of the answer to this question.
To complicate this, a little background: I've been offered two jobs: Job A means I can code in any language I want on a really cool skunkworks project--but I would have to be entirely self-taught; Job B means I would have to code in C#.NET, but I would be surrounded by some serious nerds (OS and graphics types) that would in theory be willing to mentor me.
What would you choose, assuming compensation was the same?