What Do These Symbols Mean in Repetitive Rule Application and How Are They Applied Practically?
In most CS contexts, including this one, $X^*$ means any number of&nbsp;$X$'s, including zero, and $X^+$ means one or more&nbsp;$X$'s.

So $A\Rightarrow^* B$ just means that $A$ gets to&nbsp;$B$ by some number of steps and, if that number is zero, then $A=B$. More formally, it means that there is some number $\ell\geq 1$ and objects $C_1, \dots, C_\ell$ such that $A=C_1$, $B=C_\ell$ and $C_i\Rightarrow C_{i+1}$ for each $i\in\{1, \dots, \ell-1\}$.  $A\Rightarrow^+ B$ means the same thing except with $\ell\geq 2$.

So, for example, given the grammar
$$S\to aS\mid b\,,$$
we have
$$S\Rightarrow aS\Rightarrow aaS\Rightarrow aab\,,$$
so we can write $S\Rightarrow^*aab$. In this case, $\ell=4$, $C_1=S$, $C_2=aS$, $C_3=aaS$ and $C_4=aab$.  Since $\ell\geq 2$, we can also say $S\Rightarrow^+ aab$. We can also write $S\Rightarrow^*S$, which is $\ell=1$, $C_1=S$; but we can't write $S\Rightarrow^+S$, because any positive number of productions from&nbsp;$S$ will give a string with at least one terminal symbol in it.