When to Use a State Machine

A state machine consists of discrete segments of code, otherwise known as states, that execute one at a time with a transition between each execution.

The following tasks are examples of situations for which state machines are well suited:

• Responding to user interface interactions where the user's action determines which state executes.
• Process testing where each state carries out a step of the process.
• Breaking down difficult to manage applications into smaller, easily maintainable chunks of code.

However, a state machine is not well suited for every programming situation. If your program needs to run parallel processes, you may want to choose a different design pattern.