What are you trying to create ?? a parser/lexer ?? I haven't discussed these things since I was involved in creating a third party programming language.
It is common that programming languages are parsed
Top down The book
Compilers -Principle, Techniques, and Tools by Alfred V. Aho, Ravi Sethi and Jeffrey D. Ullman, isbn: 0-201-10194-7 (The dragon book) might be a good reference, where Top down principles are explained on pages 41-48 and 181-195. Bottom up is explained on pages 293-296 and 308-311 and Data driven is explained on pages 690-694 and Event driven is explained on pages 541-554 and RAD is explained on page 387.
Another good reference would be
Software Engineering by Ian Sommerville, isbn: 0-201-42765-6, where top down designs are explained on pages 212, 452-455 and Bottom up designs are explained on pages 455, 456 and 597, Data driven is explained on pages 278-280 and Event driven is explained on pages 235-238 and RAD is explained on pages 688-690