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Another similar article: https://css-tricks.com/robust-react-user-interfaces-with-finite-state-machines/ https://css-tricks.com/robust-react-user-interfaces-wit

Another similar article: https://css-tricks.com/robust-react-user-interfaces-with-finite-state-machines/ https://css-tricks.com/robust-react-user-interfaces-with-fin... (full disclosure, I wrote this) There is definitely a learning curve to state machines, and even more so with statecharts/UML. It's much, _much_ easier to start coding an application from a bottom-up approach (start coding, colocate app logic wherever it's needed, refactor later) than a top-down approach (systematically plan the entire higher-level behavior of your app's various parts before writing a single line of code). That's why it's slow to catch on in the application development (web + native) part of the tech world. However, in game development, hardware development, etc. state machines and statecharts are more commonly used. To me, the ability to declaratively structure your program's behavior as a directed graph opens the door to the possibility of being able to automate integrated tests (simple path/shortest path/etc. algorithms), statically analyze logic (are all states reachable? are all events handled?), optimize paths, add and remove features without worrying about if some other part of the application will be adversely affected, have smarter analytics, visualize app state, and much much more. I know there's critics to FSMs where other more idiomatic language-oriented approaches would suffice (I myself absolutely detest the OOP state pattern - it's a needlessly imperative, hard-to-analyze state machine), but I think if developers further understood and saw benefits to functional, declarative, reactive programming and statecharts (a huge improvement over conventional FSMs), application development as a whole could reach a new level of efficiency and robustness.

aisofteng 9y ago
>There is definitely a learning curve to state machines, In my view, the concept of a finite state machine is a simple one with essentially no learning curve. It is a straightforward concept. I would never hire anyone that described experiencing a learning curve for this concept.
- davidkpiano 9y ago
  A surprising number of developers (especially in the web/native app dev world) are unfamiliar with state machines, especially in regard to UI development. The idea of "when an event occurs, the state changes" might be a natural one, but there's many things about FSMs that are somewhat of a learning curve: self-transitions, sink states, Mealy vs. Moore machines (and their equivalence), non-deterministic FSMs (and converting to deterministic FSMs), optimization algorithms, path-finding algorithms, implementation (imperative, functional, regex-based, etc.)

aisofteng 9y ago

>There is definitely a learning curve to state machines, In my view, the concept of a finite state machine is a simple one with essentially no learning curve. It is a straightforward concept. I would never hire anyone that described experiencing a learning curve for this concept.

davidkpiano 9y ago
A surprising number of developers (especially in the web/native app dev world) are unfamiliar with state machines, especially in regard to UI development. The idea of "when an event occurs, the state changes" might be a natural one, but there's many things about FSMs that are somewhat of a learning curve: self-transitions, sink states, Mealy vs. Moore machines (and their equivalence), non-deterministic FSMs (and converting to deterministic FSMs), optimization algorithms, path-finding algorithms, implementation (imperative, functional, regex-based, etc.)