Theory of Computation
First passTOC felt intimidating from the name alone, but automata theory turned out to be more pattern recognition than abstract theory once I actually sat down with it. Turing machines and decidability are a different story.
Working through finite automata and regular languages now. Pushdown automata and Turing machines are next, and I'm expecting them to take longer than everything before it combined.
Topics I'm covering
- Finite Automata — DFA & NFA
- Regular Expressions & Languages
- Context-Free Grammars & Pushdown Automata
- Turing Machines
- Decidability & Undecidability
- Pumping Lemma
PYQ notes
Automata-construction questions are manageable so far. Decidability questions are the ones I'm avoiding a little, which usually means I need to face them sooner.
From the journey
One Test, One Lecture, and a Little More Self-Control
Completed an NFA lecture and worked on understanding NFA-to-DFA conversion instead of memorising the steps.
DFA Done, But Not Everything Goes According to Plan
Completed the DFA chapter and moved forward to NFA, with a plan to keep progressing one lecture at a time.
Learning to Trust My Own Answers
Started the DFA chapter and planned daily practice for the language-expression questions that felt less familiar.