Well... If you would like to go into CS a little with some rigor, a book on compilers would actually be very helpful, if only because compilers have to deal wit

Well... If you would like to go into CS a little with some rigor, a book on compilers would actually be very helpful, if only because compilers have to deal with some of the most complex problems in CS today. I would advise starting with the purple dragon book and then moving on to research paper to get a feel for the current state of the field. The dragon book is a bit outdated imho (I don't think it even covers SSA and advanced value partitioning, etc...)