1st Edition

Theory of Computation for Software Developers

By Maxim Mozgovoy Copyright 2026
244 Pages 94 B/W Illustrations
by Chapman & Hall

244 Pages 94 B/W Illustrations
by Chapman & Hall

244 Pages 94 B/W Illustrations
by Chapman & Hall

The theory of computation is often viewed as one of the most abstract areas of computer science, mostly reserved for university courses. Yet its ideas power much of modern software: from regular expressions and compilers to animation systems and game AI. This book aims to bridge the gap between the formal world of the theory of computation and the realities of everyday programming practice.... Read more

Chapter 1 Regular languages and regular expressions

Chapter 2 Finite automata

Chapter 3 Bridging regular expressions and finite automata

Chapter 4 State machines in software engineering

Chapter 5 Nonregular languages and context-free grammars

Chapter 6 Pushdown automata

Chapter 7 Parsing

Chapter 8 Building compilers

Chapter 9 The Lindenmayer systems

Chapter 10 Turing machines

Chapter 11 Decidability and complexity

Biography

Maxim Mozgovoy is a senior associate professor at the University of Aizu, Japan. He earned his PhD in Applied Mathematics from St. Petersburg State University and his PhD in Computer Science from the University of Joensuu. His main research interests are focused on educational technologies, natural language processing, and artificial intelligence for games and interactive environments. Maxim has a record of over 100 published papers and industrial-level software development experience. He is a co-founder of Helium9 Games studio, a regular reviewer for IEEE Transactions on Games and Entertainment Computing, and a program committee member of the IEEE Conference on Games, FedCSIS, Foundations of Digital Games, and other international conferences.