bloodyawful

I work in digital marketing, often involved in the production of "Web 2.0" buzzword compliant mashups, viral games, microsite etc for entertainment brands. I consider myself very technically literate, and like to think I'm generally recognised as such by the programmers I work with.

As I work very closely though - sometimes even in a way that could be construed as "managing" them - I want to learn as much as I can about what they do so we can speak the same language, if you'll pardon the pun.

So what stuff should I read about? I'm finding the Joel on Software articles very enlightening (especially the recent one about program managers, who seem to have lots of parallels with my work), as well as Paul Graham (from a less tech POV). I think I'm gonna try to learn about the inner workings of a LAMP stack. What programming language should I dip my toe in the water of?

Any thoughts?