
Resources to get better at theoretical CS? - 0culus
I was wondering if the HN community could suggest resources that might be helpful for getting over the hump on understanding theoretical CS.<p>To provide perspective, I&#x27;m a first year master&#x27;s student in CS with a focus on cybersecurity. We are all required to take what is basically an advanced automata course. Undergrad automata was a while ago, and while I&#x27;m getting my feet again with DFAs and NFAs and regular expressions, I&#x27;m getting more and more lost as we move to more advanced material that either wasn&#x27;t covered in undergrad or was only touched upon.<p>Thanks!
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webmaven
Check out the Open Source Society University's Computer Science learning path:

[https://github.com/ossu/computer-science](https://github.com/ossu/computer-
science)

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deninho
Been looking for this for a while, but couldn't remember anything specific.
So, thanks for the link :)

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hackermailman
There's some undergrad DFA recorded lectures/notes here from CMU
[https://functionalcs.github.io/curriculum/#orgc8f0258](https://functionalcs.github.io/curriculum/#orgc8f0258)
specifically this
[https://scs.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Sessions/List.a...](https://scs.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Sessions/List.aspx#folderID=%22bcf8243e-cf18-481f-960f-3c5b26fbb69b%22&maxResults=50)

Regular Expressions I learned from these course notes on matching/staging
(assume you know basic set theory notation)
[http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~15150/previous-
semesters/2012-spring/...](http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~15150/previous-
semesters/2012-spring/lect.html) and the accompanying chapters in _Programming
in Standard ML_ by Robert Harper
[http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rwh/isml/book.pdf](http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rwh/isml/book.pdf)
where you debug regexp

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jventura
An alternative to the books and links posted here could be to find someone who
can help you with your "basic" CS doubts? Kind of a hire-a-CS-tutor, who could
provide you with the necessary information, teach you something and eventually
pointing the way forward..

As a CS professor myself I've been entertaining this idea for a part-time
thing, but I don't know how many people could be interested on a service like
this.

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rye-neat
As a 33 year-old, self-employed/self-taught web developer looking to become a
more proficient programmer this interests me. I've been debating finishing up
college to obtain my CS degree but it's only to fill the holes in my knowledge
base rather than benefit from holding a degree. An arrangement much like a
personal trainer at a gym could be an excellent model: identify areas to work
on, come up with a plan, and check in.

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jventura
Any suggestions on how an arrangement like that could work out for you, like
weekly 1-hour online meetings for instance? Just trying to gather some generic
opinions, aka "testing the market" :)

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rye-neat
\- An initial assessment of my needs, formulation of goals and a strategy to
reach them.

\- a weekly correspondence would be nice but could be as simple as as an
email/report

\- a monthly meeting/call/video session partnered with the weekly email/report
would probably be crucial to ensure the 'student' was being held accountable
for producing results.

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gt565k
Intro to theory of computation by Sipser is good.

[https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Theory-Computation-
Micha...](https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Theory-Computation-Michael-
Sipser/dp/113318779X)

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0culus
That's the book we're using!

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sova
Coursera has many excellent courses which I would recommend once you start
diving into advanced applications. If your professors have a coffee-circle
"Let's discuss a research paper once a week" get-together, I'd highly
recommend attending. Even if you don't get a paper completely, it's really
nice to give other people a brief on what it's about, and you end up learning
a lot of really great stuff. It's a good way to get up to speed. Not really
online resources as you're looking for, but thought I should mention it.

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0culus
I'm not aware of anything like this currently, but I'll ask around. I know the
professor for this class has run reading circles in prior semesters.

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sova
It really is the best way. Half of my grad classes were exactly this format

