Models of Computation based on Automata: Formal Languages and Communicating Processes

The work

AuthorsJos Baeten
Editors
Typebook
Year2026
Also known asjosbaeten2026models
Citekeybaeten2026models

Where it appeared

PublisherCentrum Wiskunde & Informatica
Pages1--218

Identifiers

DOI10.5281/zenodo.22010078
OpenAlexW7203758148
ISBN978-90-6196-569-5

Access

Landing pagehttps://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22010078

Settled

AbstractThe book prints no abstract. Its front matter runs title page, licence and ISBN/DOI block, then straight into a Preface; there is no abstract, summary or blurb anywhere in the 218 pages, which is normal for a monograph of this kind. The catalogues have none either: enrich on 2026-09-01 asked all eight documented services and openalex and datacite added nothing that was missing, while crossref, unpaywall and semanticscholar answered 404 and openaire and europepmc had no record. So the field is empty because there is nothing to find, not because nobody looked.
ContainerA monograph has no container. This is a stand-alone book published by CWI with its own ISBN, 978-90-6196-569-5, not a contribution to a collection, proceedings or series. Its title page and colophon name no series; the DOI is a Zenodo deposit of the book itself, which is why OpenAlex offered CERN as publisher and why nothing there resembles a venue.

Abstract

First-year students in computer science and related fields usually follow a course on Automata Theory and Formal Languages. This course gives students the foundations of computer science, and tells them what a computer can and cannot do. The course is based on the computer model called the Turing Machine, that adequately describes a computer as they were in the seventies, a stand-alone machine executing batch processes. However, the Turing machine is blind, deaf and dumb, very different from computers as we know them today. I would not let a Turing machine drive my car. This book integrates automata theory with process theory, and treats alongside the classical results about languages their generalisations about communicating processes, and some new results. In just 200 pages with plenty of exercises, it can serve as a replacement of the classical course for first-year students.

A copy is held

pdf, 2.7 MB. Not published — it may be under copyright. The facts and links here are.

How it got here

How it got hereagent via openalex
Added2026-09-01 11:05 UTC
Approved bya person 2026-09-01 17:04 UTC

Filed under

jos-baeten what-a-process-may-share what-to-give-up-to-teach-it

Cite it as

@book{baeten2026models,
  title        = {Models of Computation based on Automata: Formal Languages and Communicating Processes},
  author       = {Jos Baeten},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {Centrum Wiskunde \& Informatica},
  pages        = {1--218},
  isbn         = {978-90-6196-569-5},
  doi          = {10.5281/zenodo.22010078},
}

This record lives at https://refs.drheap.org/baeten2026models/ and will keep doing so. It used to be called josbaeten2026models, and those addresses still resolve to this one.