Modeling Software with Finite State Machines: A Practical Approach [Hardcover]

Ferdinand Wagner (Author), Ruedi Schmuki (Author), Thomas Wagner (Author), Peter Wolstenholme (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 15, 2006 | ISBN-10: 0849380863 | ISBN-13: 978-0849380860

Modeling Software with Finite State Machines: A Practical Approach explains how to apply finite state machines to software development. It provides a critical analysis of using finite state machines as a foundation for executable specifications to reduce software development effort and improve quality. This book discusses the design of a state machine and of a system of state machines. It also presents a detailed analysis of development issues relating to behavior modeling with design examples and design rules for using finite state machines.

This volume describes a coherent and well-tested framework for generating reliable software for even the most complex tasks. The authors demonstrate that the established practice of using a specification as a basis for coding is wrong. Divided into three parts, this book opens by delivering the authors' expert opinions on software, covering the evolution of development as well as costs, methods, programmers, and the development cycle. The remaining two parts encourage the use of state machines: promoting the virtual finite state machine (Vfsm) method and the StateWORKS development tools.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 392 pages
• Publisher: Auerbach Publications (May 15, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0849380863
• ISBN-13: 978-0849380860
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #379,930 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Book, December 14, 2007

By 

John Nash - See all my reviews

This review is from: Modeling Software with Finite State Machines: A Practical Approach (Hardcover)

This book is excellent for making the reader understand how a complete software application can be easily controlled using state machines, simplifying the architecture. The writing can be hard to follow sometimes and the authors make claims about areas they are not expert in that are clearly false but when it comes to state machines and developing applications using them, they clearly know what they are talking about. Just skip the non-state machine parts of the book.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars 3 out of 17 chapters gave me what I needed, August 11, 2010

By 

Boyd-Madsen - See all my reviews

This review is from: Modeling Software with Finite State Machines: A Practical Approach (Hardcover)

The title "Modeling Software with Finite State Machines", and the accompanying web-site [...], proclaim a new and fabulous way to design, develop and implement software-solutions. This method, so the authors state, will bring the engineering back into software development.

To my mind, those statements are ludicrous, very biased and uninformed and so it made it really very hard for me to read the book. The tendentious style penetrates pretty much the entire first third of the book. As however I needed a good overview of practical use of state-machine (for a non-hardware problem), I persevered.

Chapters 4, 8 and 9 gave me what I needed, though again the material is presented in a pseudo-academic, know-it-all style. The academic material on Finite Automata I have read tends to be pretty impractical, whilst this book takes a practical approach and as I get the impression, that the authors are experienced in their fields, that was good enough for me.

The last third of the book (Chapters 10 to 17), focus on StateWorks. As I do not intend to buy that product, this gave me little information I could use.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars High overhead, January 29, 2009

By 

Amazonian (Boulder, CO) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Modeling Software with Finite State Machines: A Practical Approach (Hardcover)

As others have added, the first 1/3 of this book is a very opinionated editorial on the software industry, the middle 1/3 a pretty good presentation of state machines, and the final 1/3 simply a sales pitch for Stateworks.

My biggest disappointment is that there is little in the way of code examples demonstrating their principles in this book. Obviously, they would rather you buy Stateworks instead.

Stateworks - I think you'd be crazy to stick a proprietary black box bunch of code into a major project, but that's just me. No idea what the license costs, but the price of this book as the the main sales literature isn't cheap.

Suggest checking out the SMC compiler at: smc dot sourceforge dot net. This open source code combined with some of the general design principles found in this book set me on my way. If you can't afford the book, you'll probably do pretty well with just the SMC material.