Introduction to Grammars and BNF

[@raidtheferry]

Much appreciation for these videos, Dr. Califf. My professor now could take some notes. I've never before been so lost following a 3-hour lecture only to feel confident enough for a test 15 minutes later

[@maryelainecaliff]

I'm glad you found the video helpful.

[@leonardodiehl260]

You've earned a subscriber. Incredible content, well explained, using the right amount of abstraction, good examples, good slides, well organized video. You should have a much bigger crowd for what you create. Thank you for existing (:

[@maryelainecaliff]

I appreciate the compliment, and I'm glad you have found the video helpful.

[@szymonpiechutowski2340]

There should be more academics sharing their knowledge online because coding is such an egalitarian field!

[@GlenMillard]

Excellent video Ms Califf - very easy to understand and follow. Thanks again!

[@maryelainecaliff]

Glad it was helpful!

[@sergiobohada1808]

Finding well explained computer science content is not that easy. Thanks for makign a students life a little bit easier. You've earn a subscriber.

[@maryelainecaliff]

Great to hear! Glad you found it helpful.

[@Lisa224224]

wow, very good video! the only point where i missed a programming example was when you were talking about nonterminals at first but being new to this you gave the perfect intro! thank you!

[@maryelainecaliff]

I'm glad you found it helpful

[@ericgroen253]

Hard to catchup if you're not familiair with certain phrases, but it helps me out understanding less good described study material of the course I'm taking...👍🏻

[@abdom.abdellatif4807]

very smooth explanation. thanks, Dr.

[@maryelainecaliff]

Glad it was helpful!

[@timi_t_codes]

Excellent video/tutorial! Thanks a lot Dr Califf

[@maryelainecaliff]

Glad you found it helpful.

[@chanellelegrand4290]

I just want to say you are amazing and saved my midterm grade :)

[@maryelainecaliff]

Glad to hear it.

[@daetonharris886]

This helped me understand the topic very well, I was really struggling to understand the basics of this in my class. Thank you very much for the video!

[@maryelainecaliff]

I'm glad it helped.

[@ledkicker2392]

Very clear explanation and a good presentation! Exactly what I needed to help me grasp the concept of BNF quickly and intuitively

[@maryelainecaliff]

Glad it was helpful!

[@pavel_espinal]

Succinct exposition. Thanks for this valuable content, Dr. Califf.

[@maryelainecaliff]

I'm glad you are finding it helpful.

[@lorenz2269]

Very good Video. Got it all first try :)

[@maryelainecaliff]

I'm glad you found it helpful.

[@mhamadkamel6891]

thank you! you are amazing. this video was one of the easiest to understand. I have a question: is it possible to make a rule for another language that has a different syntax and grammar structure from English? for example in English the determiner which is "the" is in front of the noun: the apple. but in Kurdish the determiner is behind a noun: Sewaka. sew: apple, aka:the. can we set a rule for these type of grammar where a noun is followed by a determiner?

[@maryelainecaliff]

In general, a context free grammar can show some of the simpler constructs of any fixed-word order language (one that relies more on the order of the words than the endings of the words to determine the structure/meaning of an utterance). However, no human language can be fully accurately represented in a context-free grammar. I use some simple English here because it should be familiar to my viewers, but BNF is most useful for representing artificial languages, like programming languages. We need something more complex/sophisticated to handle a human language.

[@evryon1810]

Great video, very useful information

[@maryelainecaliff]

Thank you! Glad you found it helpful.

[@hey_xico]

This was amazingly helpful. You gave a nice overview of grammar and how to describe it with BNF. Thank you for video.

[@maryelainecaliff]

Thanks for the compliment. I'm glad you found it helpful.

[@fikernewberhanu9201]

This was great explanation. Thanks for the video. Subscribed right after!

[@maryelainecaliff]

I'm glad you found it helpful, and hope some of the other videos are as well. I also hope to give you some new content eventually.

[@DanielHenriquePeresServejeira]

By seeing the example of the , I just remembered I've already seen the problem of that way of doing it, that tuns ambiguous using the parse trees, but how we do an unambiguous BNF of ? I've already seen the explanation of this problem, using the concepts of matched and unmatched sentences, but I did not understand it very well.

[@maryelainecaliff]

Have you checked out my video on ambiguous grammars?

[@DanielHenriquePeresServejeira]

​@@maryelainecaliff Not yet, I'll check it.

[@Phoenix-lg3mr]

Thank yo so much Ma'am, it was just so awesomely explained.

[@maryelainecaliff]

I'm glad you found it helpful.

[@jamesshockley4317]

Mary, you're awesome. Thank you so much!

[@phaniramteja115]

Can you maybe explain more about how you can write BNF grammar for bitwise expressions.... (Sorry if my questions doesn't make any sense)

[@JustNickGavriel]

Excellent Video. Excellent tutoring. Thank you. (Although I do feel that Panini could have had a mention even if just to illustrate how long people have been thinking about this stuff)

[@maryelainecaliff]

Thanks for the compliment.

[@dqueezy923]

Glad I found your channel! Thank you!

[@maryelainecaliff]

I'm glad you're finding it helpful.

[@beytullahyayla5971]

I wish i could discover this channel earlier...

[@maryelainecaliff]

I appreciate the kind words. I'm glad you're finding it helpful.

[@SupreetSinghsuppi]

This was very helpful! Thank you so much!

[@maryelainecaliff]

I'm glad you found it helpful.

[@pilot615]

Thank you for this useful video.

[@maryelainecaliff]

Glad it was helpful!

[@7350652]

Awesome. Easy to understand. Thanks

[@maryelainecaliff]

Glad you found it helpful.

[@Wooby1Dooby1]

Very informative. Thanks for the clear and concise explanation :D

[@maryelainecaliff]

You're very welcome. Glad it was helpful.

[@rocket007]

This was very good explanation, thank you very much

[@maryelainecaliff]

You are welcome! I'm glad you found it helpful.

[@JP-programming]

Great 👍

[@bikelinc]

Crazy informative thanks a lot!

[@syedatifshah8020]

v.nice you earned a subscriber, your video content is incredible, but I was searching for "attribute grammar" in the context of theory of programming language but I did not find

[@maryelainecaliff]

I'm glad you like the content, but attribute grammars are beyond the scope of the classes I currently teach, and I'm still primarily focused on making videos for my current students, though I'm delighted that others find them helpful.

[@nicolasrnemeth]

Brilliant explanation.

[@maryelainecaliff]

You are very kind.

[@hszr5852]

It is very similar to Context-Free Grammar!

[@maryelainecaliff]

BNF grammars can represent regular, context free, or context sensitive grammars. It's just a different syntax for the grammar that we typically use in theory contexts.

[@antoniomarzoa9957]

great video! thank you so much!

[@maryelainecaliff]

Glad it was helpful!

[@HammadKhan-ik8ru]

comprehensive. Thanks.

[@peilingcai5378]

Very helpful video! Thank you!

[@maryelainecaliff]

Glad it was helpful!

[@biajidejajchowdhury1058]

Where do you teach, Professor? Do you have any website where you upload your lecture slides?

[@maryelainecaliff]

I teach at Illinois State University. Because of modern-day learning management systems and the fact that my slides tend to be somewhat content-light, I do not post them publicly. In class, I'm a big believer in using slides to keep the class organized and ask questions as opposed to using them to convey content, so they would not be very helpful to people who were not sitting in my classroom.

[@antonywmiller]

Thanks for this!

[@maryelainecaliff]

You're welcome.

[@bkbkbkkkk2471]

Mam you are amazing......

[@maryelainecaliff]

Thank you? I'm glad you find the video useful.

[@bkbkbkkkk2471]

@maryelainecaliff yes mam it was very useful. Have you even explained reduction ad absurdum theorem? It's very confusing..

[@hasib6406]

Thank you so much!

[@abdulrhmanalahmadi8499]

Thank you!

[@dhrjarun]

Thanks!

[@maryelainecaliff]

Welcome! Glad you found it helpful.

[@user-sr1pp7sv9q]

Thank you

[@maryelainecaliff]

Glad you found it helpful.

[@tarassavchenko2317]

Thank you)

[@HasanKarakus]

thank you mom

[@maryelainecaliff]

You are welcome. Glad you found it helpful.

[@anastasiak8724]

how do we define arrays?

[@maryelainecaliff]

In what sense? In a particular language, or are you looking for a formal definition of an array?

[@anastasiak8724]

@@maryelainecaliff omg thank you for responding so quickly! Well... I have to define "list" which is an array of positive integers type of variable. In terms of what language....maybe C?

[@anastasiak8724]

For example i know that defining a positive integer variable (let's say "x") is ::=, but what are the rules about arrays?

[@maryelainecaliff]

@@anastasiak8724 That's going to be specific to a given language and a specific version of BNF/EBNF. Note that you're actually mixing up BNF syntax with regular expression syntax, and they're not quite the same thing -- though definitely related.

[@MrKirkCaptain]

You're awesome

[@maryelainecaliff]

Thank you.

[@hansschenker]

Maybe your grand grand grandfather has been a Khalif?

[@maryelainecaliff]

Afraid not. The Califf name is actually my husband's, and it is believed to come from Europe and be a corruption of either Calef or Caleb. No connection to the title or that part of the world.

[@IDK-kv8ob]

I'm learning about BNF in class, currently. I didn't know the creator of 4Chan was also the creator of BNF. The more you know.

[@maryelainecaliff]

Didn't Chris Poole create 4chan?

[@kotazkozla253]

słabe niestety eh duzo szczekania malo robienia

[@AlirezaBagheri-j6g]

I hate BNF.

[@maryelainecaliff]

I'm sorry to hear that. It's a useful formalism.

[@hossainratul6344]

thank you

[@lucnguyen4544]

Thank you

[@norliegh]

thank you!