Product Description
'Downright revolutionary... the title is a major understatement... 'Quantum Programming' may ultimately change the way embedded software is designed.' -- Michael Barr, Editor-in-Chief, Embedded Systems Programming magazine (Click here

Practical Statecharts in C/C++ illustrates how to efficiently code statecharts directly in C/C++. You get a lightweight alternative to CASE tools that permits you to model reactive systems with UML statecharts.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.0 based on 20 reviews)

Not what I expected

I bought this book after reading some reviews which hinted that this book would be helpful for software developers of all systems and not just embedded ones. I have to admit I have almost no practical experience with C++, but I have substantial insights into OOD.
I think this book is singularly targeted towards embedded developers, especially the ones who are into the crux of critical systems. I'm into regular OOD for PC/Web applications, and except for the first 2-3 chapters, I thought the book was impractical in today's age of environments such as .NET and high-performance hardware. This is a highly theoretical book which demands a massive change and learning curve for traditional developers.
This, however, does not undermine State Machines. State Machines, if implemented right, can work wonders for regular apps. I found the Windows Workflow Foundation to be an excellent example of practical implementation of State Machines; it does have its limitations though and is meant for high-level processes. I am probably just going to stick to State Tables and such for a simplistic model with easy debugging capabilities.
I found the UML 2 for Dummies much more practical.
June 27, 2008

It`s realy woundeful book.

Firstly: I am sorry about my English.
I think that this book is really useful and very interesting for each interesting in C++/C. And want write programs with HSM behind as behavior rules of program.
For conclusion: Useful and easy reading book.

November 13, 2007

This is a sleeping hit book!

First prior to reading this book, I was finding the title unattractive. I did not know what statecharts were and what Quantum programming was. By reading this book, I have learn that statecharts were special finite state machines that could be built by deriving them from more general FSM similar to how OO classes inheritance works.

Quantum is the name of the presented framework in the book. The title is misleading because I though that Quantum programming was some weird new programming technique that I was not aware and did not care to learn. I think that it is important to find catchy names to market software but one negative point of the book, is that the author spend way too much pages to describe similarities between quantum physics and his framework to justify the name 'Quantum' for his framework. Programmers are not all quantum physics enthusiasts!

Concerning the book content, the author presents the C++ classes implementing the statecharts framework and a set of classes to make threads driven by statecharts collaborate together by communicating with message queues. It is an interesting reading and there are many places where you can learn good programming tricks by seeing the author code. However, I am not sure that I would want to use the framework because it is complex. Let me clarify what I mean. It is not the framework that is complex but implementing statecharts is complex. I believe that the author made his code as simple as possible to implement statecharts. Personally, I still have to work on a problem where a simple FSM will not be enough.

The best feature of the book is its presentation of a base class to implement FSMs and compares it with traditional table based FSMs and a OO FSM like the one presented in the Design Pattern book and it is highly convincing that his FSM implementation is superior to the other 2 in size, performance and ease of maintenance. Another interesting topic is the author method to emulate C++ in C. You cannot beat the real thing with an emulation but when you have to go write C and you are used to do OO programming, this method might become handy.

I would say that for the FSM pattern and the C++ in C methodology alone, even if it represents a small proportion of pages in the book, it justifies the purchase of this book.

July 11, 2007

Must read material for anyone using state machines

Book is excellent in covering state machines and has many practical examples. It did not come short in covering different approaches used by real programmers to implement STMs. In second half of the book author is going into more advanced stuff and proposes what seems like an original new idea of Quantum Programming. Word "Quantum" in itself is very misleading in this context plus there is nothing new in tackling complexities of the real world dependencies in terms of State Machines. In fact author going further in creating entire new Object Oriented methodology with State Machine flavor. I doubt if most of practitioners will find more advanced chapters practically applicable, but it does not in any means reduces the values of the book as whole.

January 22, 2007

Nice concept but useless in real-time embedded application

Since I saw quite a few excellent reviews on Amazon as well as on some other websites, I decided to purchase the book hoping it would give me some fresh new ideas in implementing FSM for real-time embedded system. I was quite disappointed when I received the book and had a chance to read it. Here are my own personal comments:

- The text is too verbose and quite disorganized. Reading this I had the feeling of listening to someone rambling on and on.

- The concept is unique and quite interesting. However, it is useless as far as embedded system implementation. Think of how you are going to debug this in a real-time environment. It would be a nightmare!

- Lots of the detailed codings are encapsulated by the house-keeping codes. This is a definitely NO-NO for embedded system application if one must know every single line of executable code. (You have to know if you want to do size and speed optimization.)

- It would be a nightmare to maintain an application written using this concept. It is just not consistent with the natural flow of thinking. Don't forget that the human element can never be detached from any application.

- Debugging the state machine written using this concept is extremely difficult. (Believe me! I tried.) The concept of simply returning to the parent state if no special handling is required can be very very misleading during real-time debugging.

Simply put, if you want to read some new interesting idea, this book is for you. But if you are looking for practical idea to apply to your SW development project, I suggest you look elsewhere. The 5-star rating is very very misleading. If you are still curious, you might want to check it out first at your local Barnes&Nobles or Border before buying.

(In case anyone wonders about my background, I've been doing software development & architecture since 1988.)
November 22, 2006

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