Theory of Computation & Artificial Intelligence

I had to choose one of these courses last semester while i was studying abroad (Oklahoma University - USA).
I preferred the Theory of Computation.
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As the_pessimist mentioned in his post, this course is a theoretical course. No programming should be included.
The course's outcome depends mostly on the skills on the professor teaching it and the knowledge he has (This can be a very very advanced/tough course to teach)...

The teacher is the funniest professor i've ever met/will meet. The course was the best course in my life.

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As for the AI, I attended the 1st session (It was more than enough). And I RAN AWAY and thank God i did...
This course was a pure PAIN and mind challenging course, full of projects and exams... (Of course i'm talking about a higher level of education).

rolf wroteI'd really like to know what they teach in AI

Here's the homepage of my AI teacher at OU...

Be Afraid: http://www.cs.ou.edu/~amy/.
Be Very Afraid: Photo (zoom in for more details)


You might want to check the Courses Index and the book we were supposed to study:

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So, amkahal, if you enjoy tough courses that challenges your skills, you'll love them both.
Otherwise, you'll be dropping them.

So rather than starting a new thread, what exactly is "Theory of computation" all about? I have something coming up at work and the software architect asked me (and the team) to do some research on the topic. But from what I know, this is a whole course given to CS students so I'm not really sure what I should be searching for.

The reason why he asked us to research the topic is because we need to optimize some sort of a workflow. So is there anything specific I should be looking into given the fact that we're on a very tight schedule?

Theory of Computation is basically the theoretical aspect of CS, you forget that you work on PC's or computers and you go back to the idea that programming is making calculations in an automatic ways. So they will explain to you what are the different methods of automatic calculations (while-loop, recursive functions, Turing machines, ....). So if you have a problem and you want to program it (calculate it) you have to be able to calculate using the calculation methods (that's programming) and you will find out that there are lots of programs that you cannot find a solution for them no matter what ... so the purpose is to give you the skills that if you have a problem and want to program to ask yourself the questions : should i bother search for an algorithm or no (cause it does not exist). and the second part you focus of the complexity theory (P, NP, NP-complete type problems) and i don't know how far they will go for you but had this course this year (first year of Masters) and it was hard, looooooooooooooooots of math, thought problems - especially when they use graph problems.
You will feel in this course that you are in some math course not the usual CS course where you have to work on programs and stuff like that.

It is useful, if someday you are working on complex algorithms, very complex problems (AI, Computer Vision, Robotics, .....) or optimization (to know how far can you optimize it, you will be able to reply for this question :"should i bother search for a more optimal solution or there no way i can find one even i search for a million year ?") if not [use it], well it is something you must learn because it reminds you that CS is basically applied math (usually pple forget that and can't see the link between CS and math) and it is a good training for your brain.