Reddit mentions of Understanding Computation: From Simple Machines To Impossible Programs

Thanks for the reference. This is one of the main sources of learning for me. The recursive descent parsing sections are almost completely inspired by it.

Another great resources is Understanding Computation (http://www.amazon.com/dp/1449329276), which inspires much of the automata sections.

I will of course credit both of these resources when I get to their sections, but the former (which is excellent) takes very long to get to building a compiler (and is also a bit dry) and the latter never actually builds a compiler. I am hoping to combine the best bits of these in short sections.

> and probably better also

Professor Aiken is a brilliant teacher. The course is long, but well worth the time. Thanks for the reference.

Understanding Computation:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1449329276

Turning Machines were just one part. There were also great explanations of the halting problem, automata, parsing, static analysis, etc . . . I don't consider myself the smartest guy in the room, but even I was able to follow most of it. It uses Ruby to let you reproduce all of the ideas with code.

Honestly, it really made sense after studying theory of computation. Looking at nondeterministic finite automata and how it relates to core regular expression rules, it's not too tough to string together some pretty useful expressions. I know it's not popular to talk about academic topics to pull a concept together, but it really helps in this case.

Here's a book I recommend to people who don't have the time or inclination to do a comp sci 4-year program:

https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Computation-Machines-Impossible-Programs/dp/1449329276

*edit added book