Reddit reviews Introduction to Automata Theory, Languages, and Computation (2nd Edition)

You need to show that you know your stuff. Just because you're doing something more applied like Network Security in grad school doesn't mean that you won't have a base level of knowledge you're expected to understand. In that case, you need to learn some basic stuff a CS student at a good school would know. I'm not "dumbing down" anything on my list here, so if it seems hard, don't get discouraged. I'm just trying to cut the bullshit and help you. (:

• Redo your introduction to Computer Science. If you finish this, picking up a new language is cake.
  
  
• Discrete Mathematics, A.K.A. "Math for Computer Scientists" This is the standard text for this, but this is pretty good for a cheap book.
  
  
• Algorithms
  
  
• Compilers
  
  
• Operating Systems
  
  
• Networking
  
  
• For basic CS theory, "Introduction to Theory of Computation by Michael Sipser" is what I used to recommend, but Amazon doesn't seem to have a sanely priced copy. Either buy that used, or get the classic "Cinderella Book". Get an older edition if you can!
  
  Again, don't be discouraged, but you'll need to work hard to catch up. If you were trying for something like mathematics or physics while doing this, I'd call you batshit insane. You may be able to pull it off with CS though (at least for what you want to study). Make no mistake: getting through all these books I posted on your own is hard. Even if you do, it might be the case that still no one will admit you! But if you do it, and you can retain and flaunt your knowledge to a sympathetic professor, you might be surprised.
  
  Best of luck, and post if you need more clarification. As a side note, follow along here as well.
  
  Netsec people feel free to give suggestions as well.

Here is the link to the book:

http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Automata-Theory-Languages-Computation/dp/0201441241

HTML represents a particular line of thinking about how best to present information for machine processing and ultimately rendering so that a human can read it. The weight that HTML carries is entirely due to its success in the marketplace, it isn't a particularly good or bad exemplar as to how things should be done.

Some languages use paired symbols to indicate the beginning and end of a block of code, such as { and } or even begin and end. Others don't have an explicit beginning, but whatever valid command is first encountered is the beginning, and the end-of-file marker (a thing that no one but programmers and other very curious people ever see) signifies the end.

Hopcroft & Ullman's book on Automata Theory is a great place for someone with a magickal background to dive into computer science.

If you just want to see the many different ways of composing a very simply program (one that prints "hello, world!"), check out this list at Wikipedia.

I'm happy to answer more specific questions here or via private messages.

Hi,
do you want to become a computer scientist or a programmer? That's the question you have to ask yourself. Just recently someone asked about some self-study courses in cs and I compiled a list of courses that focuses on the theoretical basics (roughly the first year of a bachelor class). Maybe it's helpful to you so I'm gonna copy&paste it here for you:



I think before you start you should ask yourself what you want to learn. If you're into programming or want to become a sysadmin you can learn everything you need without taking classes.

If you're interested in the theory of cs, here are a few starting points:

Introduction to Automata Theory, Languages, and Computation

The book you should buy

MIT: Introduction to Algorithms

The book you should buy


Computer Architecture<- The intro alone makes it worth watching!

The book you should buy

Linear Algebra

The book you should buy <-Only scratches on the surface but is a good starting point. Also it's extremely informal for a math book. The MIT-channel offers many more courses and are a great for autodidactic studying.

Everything I've posted requires no or only minimal previous education.
You should think of this as a starting point. Maybe you'll find lessons or books you'll prefer. That's fine! Make your own choices. If you've understood everything in these lessons, you just need to take a programming class (or just learn it by doing), a class on formal logic and some more advanced math classes and you will have developed a good understanding of the basics of cs. The materials I've posted roughly cover the first year of studying cs. I wish I could tell you were you can find some more math/logic books but I'm german and always used german books for math because they usually follow a more formal approach (which isn't necessarily a good thing).
I really recommend learning these thing BEFORE starting to learn the 'useful' parts of CS like sql,xml, design pattern etc.
Another great book that will broaden your understanding is this Bertrand Russell: Introduction to mathematical philosophy
If you've understood the theory, the rest will seam 'logical' and you'll know why some things are the way they are. Your working environment will keep changing and 20 years from now, we will be using different tools and different languages, but the theory won't change. If you've once made the effort to understand the basics, it will be a lot easier for you to switch to the next 'big thing' once you're required to do so.

One more thing: PLEASE, don't become one of those people who need to tell everyone how useless a university is and that they know everything they need just because they've been working with python for a year or two. Of course you won't need 95% of the basics unless you're planning on staying in academia and if you've worked instead of studying, you will have a head start, but if someone is proud of NOT having learned something, that always makes me want to leave this planet, you know...

EDIT: almost forgot about this: use Unix, use Unix, and I can't emphasize this enough: USE UNIX! Building your own linux from scratch is something every computerscientist should have done at least once in his life. It's the only way to really learn how a modern operating system works. Also try to avoid apple/microsoft products, since they're usually closed source and don't give you the chance to learn how they work.

They're called ε transitions in the book from which I first learned (HMU):

http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Automata-Theory-Languages-Computation/dp/0201441241

But, all subsequent classes I've been in have called them lambda.

I continue to call them ε transitions because before I had heard otherwise, I read a paper discussing the sorts of (equivalent) automata that are created by allowing multiple NFAs to run concurrently.

http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/297888.html

In the paper, the sort of transition that is created due to the shuffle operator is called a "lambda transition," so that is what I think of when I hear "lambda".

I recommend the read. It introduces the shuffle operator, adds a new construct to the "Thompson Construction" method of RE->NFA, and discusses their equivalence to binary Petri Nets.

It should be noted that a review problem in HMU discusses the closure properties of shuffling two regular languages (i.e., the shuffle of 2 regular languages is still regular). Kozen also discusses the shuffle in his intro to automata book.

In MSCS we spent a semester going through this. It was a hard class! As we were hurling question after confused question about our text

http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Automata-Theory-Languages-Computation/dp/0201441241

(first edition). The instructor exclaimed, "no, yes, this is good!"