Over the last 30+ years, I've found automata theory to be pretty much indispensable. I can't even begin to tell you the number of times I've run across hideousl

Over the last 30+ years, I've found automata theory to be pretty much indispensable. I can't even begin to tell you the number of times I've run across hideously complex logic that I replaced with a simple and maintainable finite state machine.