# context-free languages

Published articles for context-free languages.

This is one page of public article previews, not the complete archive. Follow Next page to continue. Summaries are not the original full articles.

## Determinism and Finite Automata--A Primer

DevFeed: [Determinism and Finite Automata--A Primer](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/determinism-and-finite-automata-a-primer-40217.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://www.jeremykun.com/2011/07/02/determinism-and-finite-automata-a-primer/>)

Published: 2011-07-02T23:41:30Z

Content type: tutorial

Language: en

Sources: [Jeremy Kun](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/jeremy-kun.md>)

Topics: [Automaton](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/automaton.md>), [function](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/function.md>)

Tags: [computability-theory](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/computability-theory.md>), [computing](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/computing.md>), [context-free-languages](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/context-free-languages.md>), [deterministic-finite-automata](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/deterministic-finite-automata.md>), [finite-state-machines](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/finite-state-machines.md>), [function](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/function.md>), [input](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/input.md>), [language](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/language.md>), [mathematics](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/mathematics.md>), [nondeterministic-finite-automata](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/nondeterministic-finite-automata.md>), [primer](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/primer.md>), [pushdown-automata](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/pushdown-automata.md>), [regular-languages](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/regular-languages.md>), [string](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/string.md>), [turing-machines](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/turing-machines.md>)

### AI overview

This primer introduces computation as a function that maps input to output, then develops a more rigorous model based on finite alphabets and strings. It explains how a computational model recognizes a language by accepting or rejecting strings.

### Source excerpt

The first step in studying the sorts of possible computations (and more interestingly, those things which cannot be computed) is to define exactly what we mean by a "computation." At a high level, this is easy: a computation is simply a function. Given some input, produce the appropriate output. Unfortunately this is much too general. For instance, we could define almost anything we want in terms of functions. Let $ f$ be the function which accepts as input the date of California Super Lotto drawings, and returns the set of winning numbers for that date.