The concept of a state machine is old; its definition belongs to the basics of Automata Theory. In principle it seems to be a simple definition and requires understanding of the “state” concept. In spite of its simplicity the concept has been deformed, corrupted, misunderstood and up now the well known misunderstandings about a state machine result in a relatively modest use of the state machine idea in the specification and design of software. In our publications we try to indicate that a state machine is so well defined (see for instance the book or the technical note and the the already mentioned document about Moore and Mealy models) that it does not require re-definitions or (mis-)interpretations, especially that:
- a flow chart is not a state machine
- a Petri net is not a state machine
- a statechart is not a state machine
- there is no need to define an incomplete state machine under a new name (see for instance the technical note)
- it is possible to create a complex control system modeled by a system of state machines
to name only some topics discussed in our documents.
We are convinced that the concept of a finite state machine is one of the strongest ideas in the world of modelling control tasks in general and specifically in the design of a software control flow. A typical implementation of software control flow using the if-then-else and switch like mechanisms supported by numerous flags is a primitive style of development difficult to understand and accept in the 21 century.