CS154 is Stanford's introductory course on automata and complexity theory, covering formal languages, finite automata, Turing machines, and computability and complexity. It is offered through the Stanford CS department's course site.

Commenters suggest it as a way to formalize abstract concepts and build abstract thinking, recommending it over informal anecdotes.

What commenters said (1)

1. Recommendssub72020in “Ask HN: How to improve my abstract thinking?”

   You should do a course in Automata Theory. Check out cs154.stanford.edu

   I used the book "Language, Proof, and Logic" which was also excellent.

   These courses will formalize concepts and allow you to apply them much better than random anecdotes.

Related courses

• Algorithms, Part ICoursera · 38 recommenders
• CS61A: Structure and Interpretation of Computer ProgramsUC Berkeley · 31 recommenders
• 6.006 Introduction to AlgorithmsMIT OpenCourseWare · 27 recommenders
• Introduction to Computer Science and Programming in PythonMIT OpenCourseWare · 25 recommenders
• Algorithms: Design and Analysis, Part 1Coursera · 17 recommenders
• Algorithms, Part IICoursera · 11 recommenders
• Discrete OptimizationCoursera · 12 recommenders
• How to Code: Simple DataedX · 10 recommenders