State Languages

State languages are used primarily for expressing sequences of operations in the real world. Typically, these languages divide a program into a series of “states,” or steps – the program executes wholly in one step until some transition event occurs which causes the program to move to a new step. As such, it represents a reasonable way to express the operation of machinery, which itself must transit through a series of mechanical states as it operates. Practical state languages used for automation must allow multitasking, whereby multiple threads of steps may be in operation at once.