<html> <head> <style> .hmmessage P { margin:0px; padding:0px } body.hmmessage { FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY:Tahoma } </style> </head> <body class='hmmessage'>Hello Avery,   > On 15/02/2008, Robert Rawlins <robert_rawlins@hotmail.com> wrote: > > I do startProcess() > > startProcess() calls back with processStarted() > > processStarted() then starts soSomthing() > > doSomthing calls back with somthingDone() > > somethingDone() then started doAnotherThing() > > doAnotherThing() calls back and starts doTheLastThing() > > > > Do you see what I mean? a link of function calls and callbacks which cause > > a chain reaction and progress the particular element of the application to > > go through its states. > > [...] > > After looking around this morning it would seem that a > > Finite State Machine is designed to manage this kind of process for me, is > > that correct? > > Actually, the process you described is already a finite state machine > :) FSMs are really just a way of thinking about programs that go > through a series of states. The math doesn't particularly help you > implement one. > > I think what you might want are "continuations" or "coroutines." In > C++, the WvStreams library contains a class called WvCont that does it > very nicely: http://alumnit.ca/wvstreams/docs/wvcont_8h-source.html > > If you're using .net (mono / C#), I wrote a simple implementation of > the same thing using (weirdly enough) .net iterators: > http://www.advogato.org/person/apenwarr/diary/358.html > > You can do something similar with raw setjmp/longjmp, but I'm not sure > you want to get into that :) > > Another option is to use blocking dbus method calls in a thread, > although threads introduce their own set of problems. > > Have fun, > > Avery   Thanks for the thorough explanation :-) This is all a new and alien concept to me, I come from a background in web development so the hole concept of automated applications and event driven models is very new to me.   I see what you mean about my current process being an Finite State Machine of sorts, I've just been looking around at a few examples of creating an FSM class which you can implement into the application which contains a table of transactions and states and their associated methods. I cant really see any real benefit to me implementing one as the application seems to run just peachy as is, I was just interested to see how it might implement from a technical learning exercise point of view. Thanks for the suggestions Avery, I apprecaite it,   Robert <hr />Sounds like? How many syllables? <a href='http://www.searchcharades.com' target='_new'>Guess and win prizes with Search Charades!</a></body> </html>