Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!rochester!fulk
From: fulk@cs.rochester.edu (Mark Fulk)
Newsgroups: comp.theory
Subject: Re: Design of FA's with a GUI
Keywords: graphics, finite automata, state machines
Message-ID: <1990Feb13.143415.12763@cs.rochester.edu>
Date: 13 Feb 90 14:34:15 GMT
References: <71@caslon.cs.arizona.edu>
Reply-To: fulk@cs.rochester.edu (Mark Fulk)
Distribution: comp
Organization: University of Rochester Computer Science Department
Lines: 19

In article <71@caslon.cs.arizona.edu> roussos@cs.arizona.edu (George E. Roussos) writes:
>	I am curious to hear of what kind of tools exist for the design
>of finite automata/state machines that use a graphical user interface to
>allow the designer to describe the automata by using a mouse and objects
>to represent the states and transitions into/out of them.  If you have

David Harel (harel@wisdom.weizmann.ac.il) and Amir Pnueli have an extremely
nice system based on their notion of "state charts".  State charts describe
finite automata, but are often vastly more compact; they provide simple ways
of describing cartesian product states, for example.  I've seen some sample
graphics, and they are very nice.  A state-chart description of Harel's
digital watch was much clearer than the corresponding state diagram, and
made it obvious where the watch-maker had committed some ergonomic no-nos.

As a simple limiting case, you can just diagram a DFA, Mealy machine,
or Moore machine with it.  But I'd bet you'll want to use the more
advanced features.

Mark Fulk