>Software types are likely to
>cheat and cause their code to break by doing things only when a state is
>entered or exitted.

AS as "software type", I usually create three states in such cases: One for the
"entry" state, one for "polling, looping, etc", and one for the "exit" state.

I don't know if *this* is cheating or not, but sometimes the next state to
be transitioned to from the current state depends on the previous state.
Sort of like subroutine calls within a state machine.  I only use such a
technique in order to avoid duplication of state.  Avoiding duplication
also avoids bugs cause by changes made to one of the any identically
functioning state but not the rest.

I once wrote a state machine for a "game show" program which had
over 150 states!  Mind blowingly complex, but it would have been almost
impossible with traditional logic structures (if then else).

State machines rule!

Dan

>
>BillW
>