Regex

CSC236 reached the part that covers regular expressions and finite state machines, and indeed this course keeps getting more interesting and involving with each passing lecture. It started with general proof techniques, but actually put them to real use when it came to recursive definitions and assessing program correctness, something I found very satisfying.

Now regular expressions go hand in hand with the current material taught in CSC207, and it feels great to see material from related courses start to converge. I can't decide on whether to look at regex as formulas or as very compact programs. They certainly have the intuitive, sequential construction process of a program, but their simple form and uniqueness dismisses the liberties often associated with hacking a piece of code.

My next posts will cover some of the problems discussed in the course so far, and my understanding and take on them.