A “big-ideas” approach to an undergraduate Computation Theory course is described. The aim of this approach to the Theory is to focus the student on those of the Theory’s concepts and tools that are more likely to be relevant to a student’s non-theoretical endeavors. By explaining why these are the “big” concepts, the course also prepares the student to assimilate these concepts into his/her co...

These notes are intended as a “rough and ready” guide to grammars and parsing. The theoretical foundations required for a thorough treatment of the subject are developed in the Formal Languages, Automata, and Computability course. The construction of parsers for programming languages using more advanced techniques than are discussed here is considered in detail in the Compiler Construction course.