[External] : Re: Question about circular references

[David Alayachew]

Hello Ron,

Thank you for your response!

I have to run for holiday festivities, so this will be my last response for
several hours. I'll address any future points tomorrow when I get back.

> Cyclic is in fact possible

Since I conceded that cyclic is in fact possible (regardless of the trouble
I have to go through to get it), there's not much I have to say other than
that you are correct, cyclic is in fact possible.

> BIG problem

I spend a lot of my time writing front end code, path finding algorithms,
and natural language processing. These are basically the 3 realms I spend
90% of my time in. All 3 of these treat State Transition Diagrams as the
holy grail for representing control flow and decision making. Literally ALL
of the business logic I write for these initiatives involves me emulating a
state transition diagram directly into Java code.

For front end code, after I click a button, knowing what the next buttons
should be activated or deactivated is an ideal use case for a state
transition diagram. If I write a calculator, pressing the start button
should activate the number buttons and the operator buttons, but not the
negation button or the clear buttons. By using a state transition diagrams,
you clearly define all possible path in control flow execution, which is
GOLDEN for eliminating bugs in front end code.

For path finding algorithms, I don't think that requires any explanation
lol. State transition diagrams were literally built for path finding
algorithms lol. You need a very good reason to NOT use a state transition
diagram.

And for natural language processing, you follow almost the exact same logic
as the front end code example above. By entering a word, you have filtered
the domain of possible follow up words considerably, depending on the type
of the word. It is this control flow wrangling that allows something as
prohibitively expansive as the English language to be effectively wrangled
down to Earth with State Transition Diagrams and Pattern matching. It's no
secret that the first thing I ever used Amber for was natural language
processing ()

All of that is to say this. This is a problem that I pay a tax for several
times a day, every day. So in my eyes, this is a very large thorn in my
side.
I treat it similarly to how we treated enums. Sure, they were representable
as static final fields, but introducing them as an enum opened up an entire
world of possibilities that I could use them for. Enums are my literal
favorite feature in all of Java because, like pattern-matching and state
transition diagrams, it allows you to be able to wrestle a prohibitively
complex domain (serialization and deserialization of a small set of values)
into an ergonomic feature that's easy to wield.

I'll respond to any further questions when I get back.

Thank you for your time and help!
David Alayachew
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