So I'm talking about stuff like NFAs (nondeterministic finite state automata) DFAs (deterministic finite state automata).These concepts are nowhere near as complicated as their names make them sound they are in fact generally quite intuitive, a reasonable grounding in basic set theory will help you here.

It will also give you a much better understanding of how programming languages are interpreted 'under the hood', in fact one of the first things any compiler/interpreter does to your code is essentially run it through a fancy regex engine.

This leads you on to making realizations not only about the performance implications of pattern matching in text, but they are also keys to solving a variety of problems in a simple way.

In reference to a specific text, I learned the concept from the early chapters of 'the dragon book' but I'm sure gentler introductions are available.