I've only used a state machine in code once. Guess what I was writing. BUT. Once a state diagram saved my team a whole lot of pain. We were translating a piec

I've only used a state machine in code once. Guess what I was writing. BUT. Once a state diagram saved my team a whole lot of pain. We were translating a piece of regulation to code. There were a bunch of people directly talking to us that had a little idea (in that case, worse than no idea) of what the persistence of the real system was. The diagram made wonders: I was able to ask "is this situation the same as this? no? why?" and actually make myself understood when I said "that won't work" instead of getting in a loop. Best of all: non-technical people got really well what the diagram meant and, after a while playing with it, they liked it. Big fan.