How do you teach Theory of Automata / Formal Language Theory / Computation Complexity?

manpreet Best Answer 2 years ago

i'm a new instructor & also new here.

How do you teach Theory of Automata / Formal Language Theory / Computation Complexity?

Is it theory only, or including programming? If theory only, how deep - for example, are they supposed to be able to prove, how deep? If programming, what kind?

It would be much appreciated if you can share your wisdom. If there're other similar threads, would appreciate it very much if you can share the link. I'm also still reading the threads here, and browsing the internet for the syllabus of other universities. I don't have any TA, and nobody to discuss about this course in my department (theoretical CS is mostly non-existent here, most focus on application).

Thank you very much.

Edit: I wonder how other professors/TAs managed to give programming assignments to their students, such as building a CYK algorithm-based parser, but they provided the parser/compiler/backbone (?).