The aim of this course is to provide you with basic knowledge about Formal Languages and Automaton Theory. While this course is in a way a continuation of the undergraduate course CS 3613 Theoretical Foundations of Computing, it can be treated as an independent unit.
This course is being done for the first time within the WebCT environment. Therefore, it is not perfect and I expect that we will run into a number of glitches and your understanding and help are highly appreciated (for instance, this intro is adapted from another course and I will update it some time in the future, but not immediately -- but if there is anything here that needs fixing now. please let me know). In particular, I am trying to have this happening as close to the textbook as spossible. I have decided that for a web-based course this may be the best way to proceed. This means, howevert, that I am assigning most homework assignments directly from the book. In some cases these book-based assignments have been found somewhat confusing. If you experience this, please tell me (immediately) to improve the assignment descriptions (augment it in the web-environment). As a matter of fact, I hope that you will give me ideas as to how this course can be improved so that future students can be more satisfied and learn more while taking it.
Modern computing (and in general, moder professional life) is a "discipline" that is very much a team effort and requires very good communication skills. This being the case, since WebCT provides appropriate support mechanisms (bulletin board and e-mail) I will try to find ways to encourage your working on communication abilities. This point is very important! I have found that in the past these classess (groups of students taking this course) that utilized the bulletin board to communicate did better than these groups of students that tried to do everything individually. With my travel schedule it may be that I am not able to reply to your personal e-mails on time, but when all of you e-communicate, you should be able to find solution to common problems and to straighten misunderstandings.
Furthermore, since written communication is one of the more important aspects of being a "professional" in any of the sciences, you will find that a number of homework assignments involve writing. More precisely, you will be asked to write reports / position statements that summarize the results of your investigations / thinking. Please take this form of assignment seriously and do not try to blow them off with a few words. I am really serious about writing skills.
Marcin Paprzycki (dr. P.)
In case you do not know this yet, I am living in Poland. This means that this course is going to be a truly distance-learning experience. This in turn has some important consequences:
To contact me use the Mail (Private) link on the "control panel"
You can also e-mail (you can use either one, but in case of emergency use all three as either of the servers may be down):
marcin.paprzycki@ibspan.waw.pl
marcin.paprzycki@ibspan.waw.pl
Web-site -- may move during the semester: