Automata theory: Its relevance to computer science students and course contents
Most college and university undergraduate CS programs have a course dealing with the theory of automata and formal languages. In most institutions, the syllabus of such a course is quite stable, and if one compares the syllabus of different institutions, chances are that no significant differences will be found in the automata and computability section of the course. Since CS is a constantly evolving and rapidly developing discipline, such stability should be a matter for serious discussion and periodic re-evaluation. Moreover, the ACM/IEEE Computing Curriculum 2001 appears to downgrade this material into a unit rather than a full-fledged course. We believe that the relevance of the course is actually greater today than ever and this important issue needs intense discussions as well. Copyright 2006 ACM.
