Re: Timing

On Tue, 3 Dec 2002 [email protected] wrote:

> Hmm, Herman, could you convince me why the opposite shouldn't be true?
>
> > _Every_ sequencing language becomes a pain as soon as one tries to
> > specify timing .... Therefore, I like events/state machines a lot more,
> > because there time is not absolutely present.
> >
> _Every_ events/state machine becomes a pain as soon as one tries to specify and
> ensure timing .... Therefore, I like sequencial languages that reflect
> the sequential properties of execution, permitting timing
> considerations to be explicit.

The difference I wanted to make is the difference between specifying
_timing_ and _sequencing_. The latter is less stringent, because it only
specified the order and the logic with which to execute things, and not
the absolute time at which things have to take place. So, a state
machine is a "natural" implementation of (the simplest) event-based
sequencing formalisms.  And indeed, putting timing into a state machine
is not a clever thing to do either.

Both state machines and sequential languages can be made complex, of
course :-)

Herman