It would appear my old algebraic automata theory textbook is obsolete.

Bummer.
Last weekend my daughter was showing me what she has been writing for an independent study course she's been working on for couple of semesters. It's not finished but it runs. I was having trouble following her description of what it does. There were AI terms I'm not accustom to using involved.
I kind of almost understood, there was a lot of discussion of nodes, paths, and mapping. Then I had a breakthrough. I suddenly realized what it was she'd made and said "it's a compiler."
She said "yes, sort of, it's tool."
I gave her a Jazz game compiler when she was in sixth grade. She played with it for years.