The Complete Guide to State Machines

This comprehensive tutorial will take you from the fundamentals of state machine programming to advanced statechart modeling techniques used in professional software development.

Who This Guide Is For

This guide is ideal for:

  • Software developers wanting to model complex behavior more clearly
  • Embedded systems engineers working with event-driven systems
  • UI/UX developers managing application state and user flows
  • System architects designing reactive and event-driven systems
  • Students and educators learning software design patterns

Prerequisites: Basic programming knowledge in any language. Familiarity with concepts like variables, functions, and conditional logic is helpful but not required.

Time commitment: Each chapter takes 10-15 minutes to read. The complete guide can be worked through in 2-3 hours, or taken at your own pace over several sessions.

About This Guide

This guide is designed to be:

  • Practical: Focused on real-world applications and examples
  • Progressive: Building from simple concepts to advanced techniques
  • Visual: Using diagrams and examples to illustrate concepts
  • Hands-on: Encouraging you to try things out as you learn

Each concept of state machines introduced in this guide is illustrated with an executable player.
Using the itemis CREATE Player, you can interactively raise events, inspect variable values, and observe the statechart executing step-by-step.
This hands-on experience is invaluable for developing a deeper understanding of how the system reacts, how transitions are triggered, and how variables evolve over time.
Seeing the statechart “in motion” helps bridge the gap between theory and practice, making it much easier to grasp the underlying semantics while executing real examples.

On the bottom left, you can see all variables and events that are defined in the statemachine. Try to raise the event buttonPressed and see the statemachine in action.

Getting Started

To get the most out of this guide:

  1. Start with Chapter 1 to understand the basics
  2. Work through each chapter in order
  3. Try the examples in your favorite statechart tool
  4. Apply what you learn to your own projects

Ready to begin? Head over to Chapter 1: What is a State Machine?