It’s not a secret that big tech companies, such as Google, Facebook, and others, organize their recruiting process around generalist engineers who understand basic fundamental systems, data structures, and algorithms. In fact, it’s a known issue in tech-recruiting; there are a lot of “programmers”, but not so many “engineers”. And what does define an engineer in this case? An ability to solve complex problems, with understanding (and experience) in those generic concepts.
And there is a simple trick how you can gain great experience with transferable knowledge to other systems. You take some complex theoretical field, which might not (yet) be related to your main job, and implement it in a language you’re familiar with. And while you build it, you learn all the different data structures and algorithms that accommodate this system. It should specifically be something generic (for example, state machines) so that you can further transfer this knowledge to your “day-to-day” job.
In this course, we take this approach. To study automata “theory”, we make it more practical: we take one of its widely used applications, the lexical analysis and pattern matching, and build a RegExp machine.
What you will learn
Learn about the theory of computation
Learn about state machines and finite automata
Learn about graphs, traversal, states, and transitions
Learn how to build a full RegExp machine
Learn about non-deterministic and deterministic finite automata
Learn about formal grammar and finite automata
What do you get with a Packt Subscription?
Free for first 7 days. $15.99 p/m after that. Cancel any time!
Unlimited ad-free access to the largest independent learning library in tech. Access this title and thousands more!
50+ new titles added per month, including many first-to-market concepts and exclusive early access to books as they are being written.
Innovative learning tools, including AI book assistants, code context explainers, and text-to-speech.
Thousands of reference materials covering every tech concept you need to stay up to date.
Dmitry Soshnikov is a software engineer and a lecturer on different computer science topics. He is passionate about education and focuses on high-quality educational content: concise and straight-to-the-point animated lectures with live-editing notes.
A subscription provides you with full access to view all Packt and licnesed content online, this includes exclusive access to Early Access titles. Depending on the tier chosen you can also earn credits and discounts to use for owning content
How can I cancel my subscription?
To cancel your subscription with us simply go to the account page - found in the top right of the page or at https://subscription.packtpub.com/my-account/subscription - From here you will see the ‘cancel subscription’ button in the grey box with your subscription information in.
What are credits?
Credits can be earned from reading 40 section of any title within the payment cycle - a month starting from the day of subscription payment. You also earn a Credit every month if you subscribe to our annual or 18 month plans. Credits can be used to buy books DRM free, the same way that you would pay for a book. Your credits can be found in the subscription homepage - subscription.packtpub.com - clicking on ‘the my’ library dropdown and selecting ‘credits’.
What happens if an Early Access Course is cancelled?
Projects are rarely cancelled, but sometimes it's unavoidable. If an Early Access course is cancelled or excessively delayed, you can exchange your purchase for another course. For further details, please contact us here.
Where can I send feedback about an Early Access title?
If you have any feedback about the product you're reading, or Early Access in general, then please fill out a contact form here and we'll make sure the feedback gets to the right team.
Can I download the code files for Early Access titles?
We try to ensure that all books in Early Access have code available to use, download, and fork on GitHub. This helps us be more agile in the development of the book, and helps keep the often changing code base of new versions and new technologies as up to date as possible. Unfortunately, however, there will be rare cases when it is not possible for us to have downloadable code samples available until publication.
When we publish the book, the code files will also be available to download from the Packt website.
How accurate is the publication date?
The publication date is as accurate as we can be at any point in the project. Unfortunately, delays can happen. Often those delays are out of our control, such as changes to the technology code base or delays in the tech release. We do our best to give you an accurate estimate of the publication date at any given time, and as more chapters are delivered, the more accurate the delivery date will become.
How will I know when new chapters are ready?
We'll let you know every time there has been an update to a course that you've bought in Early Access. You'll get an email to let you know there has been a new chapter, or a change to a previous chapter. The new chapters are automatically added to your account, so you can also check back there any time you're ready and download or read them online.
I am a Packt subscriber, do I get Early Access?
Yes, all Early Access content is fully available through your subscription. You will need to have a paid for or active trial subscription in order to access all titles.
How is Early Access delivered?
Early Access is currently only available as a PDF or through our online reader. As we make changes or add new chapters, the files in your Packt account will be updated so you can download them again or view them online immediately.
How do I buy Early Access content?
Early Access is a way of us getting our content to you quicker, but the method of buying the Early Access course is still the same. Just find the course you want to buy, go through the check-out steps, and you’ll get a confirmation email from us with information and a link to the relevant Early Access courses.
What is Early Access?
Keeping up to date with the latest technology is difficult; new versions, new frameworks, new techniques. This feature gives you a head-start to our content, as it's being created. With Early Access you'll receive each chapter as it's written, and get regular updates throughout the product's development, as well as the final course as soon as it's ready.We created Early Access as a means of giving you the information you need, as soon as it's available. As we go through the process of developing a course, 99% of it can be ready but we can't publish until that last 1% falls in to place. Early Access helps to unlock the potential of our content early, to help you start your learning when you need it most. You not only get access to every chapter as it's delivered, edited, and updated, but you'll also get the finalized, DRM-free product to download in any format you want when it's published. As a member of Packt, you'll also be eligible for our exclusive offers, including a free course every day, and discounts on new and popular titles.