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i think this has always subconsciously confused me whenever people talk about state machines, and your comment clarifies what i think ive felt. what would quali
by the_cat_kittles 6y ago
i think this has always subconsciously confused me whenever people talk about state machines, and your comment clarifies what i think ive felt. what would qualify as not a state machine in the broad sense?
- amw-zero 6y agoThat’s a great question. Combinational logic is an example of something that computes that isn’t a state machine. You can compute Boolean algebra operations with no notion of time, they’re essentially pure functions. That’s where it gets slightly confusing though. Just because a function is pure, does not mean that its implementation is not a state machine. For example, an algorithm to compute the greatest common denominator between two numbers is stateful, even if it has a pure functional interface.