Ask HN: What are the best introductory resources on formal languages?

[cartesius13]

I've always been interested in languages and grammar so when I got into programming I was immediatelly interested in programming languages

The problem I'm having is that I see all these terms being thrown around like BNF, Chomsky Hierarchy, context-free, context-sensitive and regular grammars, LL, LR LALR Parsers, Automata etc.

Most books assume I don't care about the theoretical details and are more focused on implementing programming languages quickly and with only the minimum knowledge required for doing so. But I actually do care about the theoretical details more than implementing a programming language, which is why I come ask you what introductory books on these topics would you recommend

[mindcrime]

Hopcroft & Ullman[1] is generally widely recommended. I only just got my copy a couple of days ago, so haven't had a chance to dig in yet.

The Sipser book[2] is also generally recommended as being very good.

[1]: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0201441241/

[2]: https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Theory-Computation-Micha...