An Introduction to Formal Languages and Automata, Fifth Edition

Written to address the fundamentals of formal languages, automata, and computabilty, An Introduction to Formal Languages and Automata provides an accessible, student-friendly presentation of all material essential to an introductory Theory of Computation course. It is designed to familiarize students with the foundations and principles of computer science and to strengthen the students' ability to carry out formal and rigorous mathematical arguments. In the new Fifth Edition, Peter Linz continues to offer a straightforward, uncomplicated treatment of formal languages and automata and avoids excessive mathematical detail so that students may focus on and understand the underlying principles. In an effort to further the accessibility and comprehension of the text, the author has added new illustrative examples and exercises throughout. New and Key Features of the revised and updated Fifth Edition: Includes a new chapter within the appendices on finite-state transducers, including basic results on Mealy and Moore machines. This optional chapter can be used to prepare students for further related study. Provides an introduction to JFLAP, also within the appendices. Many of the exercises in the text require creating structures that are complicated and that have to be tested for correctness. JFLAP can greatly reduce students time spent on testing as well as help them visualize abstract concepts. A CD-ROM accompanies every new copy of the text and contains the following: A summary description of JFLAP; Numerous new exercises that illustrate the value and efficiency of JFLAP; JFLAP implementations of most of the examples in the text that allow students and instructors to experiment dynamically with these examples.

Customer Reviews:

A poor text

By A Customer - December 15, 2001

A couple of years ago I taught two computability courses during the same semester. One of the courses was in the undergraduate program while the other was in the graduate program. As I was a visitor, I did not have a hand in picking either text. This text had been selected for the undergradate version of the course. At the time, I wrote a review for the book we used for the graduate course saying how much better it was than the Linz book. The Linz book not only covered less material, but it offered poorer explanations. Although I was a visitor, I endeavored to warn succeeding instructors of the undergraduate course against using the Linz book and sincerely hope that it was not used the next year. A couple of days ago, I received email from someone thinking of using the text for the graduate course asking me to identify the Linz book which I mentioned, but did not identify, in my original review. This request prompted me to write this review. Regardless, the Linz book is a poorly... read more

Yikes

By Sonny ";)" - January 19, 2001

void Read_Linz()
{
...for (int chapter = 1; chapter <= 14; ++chapter)
...{
......int count = 0;
......do {
.........ReadVeryCarefully(chapter);
.........bool confused = true;
.........if (++count == TOO_MANY)
............abort();
......}while (confused);
...}
}

Not a good book

By Brett Bernstein - May 13, 2003

First off, let me say this book did not confuse me. It's just very poorly written. If this was the only Automata book I ever read, my review would not mean as much. On the contrary, I have read 4-5 Automata books and have taught the topic numerous times. I urge teachers and students to avoid this book. If you would like a great book covering this material, get Dexter Kozen's Automata and Computability. That book is so well written and elegant that it puts most of the other books to shame. It is one of the top CS books on my list along with SICP, CLRS, and a few others. In addition, the "OLD" version of Hopcroft and Ullman is pretty good but the newer version with Motwani is bad. Anyways, I hope this helps some of you who are looking for a good book to read.