I have had strong opinions about the same, which have fluctuated drastically over time and now settled on less stronger opinion. I was from an EE background an

I have had strong opinions about the same, which have fluctuated drastically over time and now settled on less stronger opinion. I was from an EE background and didn't have an algorithms course in our curricula (did my bachelors in India, so you don't usually have a lot of options of taking the courses you like). So I hated CLRS and like Skiena (though couldn't appreciate it well enough). Later on, went to grad school and had a amazing teacher and I was hung over theoretical text books (CLRS etc) and swore by them. Now I was teaching algorithms to couple of colleagues (again from non-CS) background, and initially tripped by suggesting CLRS. They are way more happier with Skiena. I guess, for some people applications inspire the theory and then theory take over. For others, they fall in love with theory naturally (or with good teachers). So my current take is, you probably want to go thru both the books if you want to code/think in algorithmic way. The order is going to depend on the person.