How does the Staccato Software Architecture compare with UML 2.0 Statecharts?
A. The Staccato Software Architecture is based on a ‘system of Finite State Machines (FSMs)’, where, after proper partitioning, each software task is implemented as a Finite State Machine. Each state of a task’s state machine is encoded as a single ‘C’ function, which is executed through completion by the Staccato Executive. UML 2.0 Statecharts is based on the work of David Harel, in which he describes a method for the ‘visual formalism for complex systems’. StateCharts uses the concept of hierarchical state machines (HSMs), along with other concepts such as orthogonality, to provide the means to visually describe the behavior of an entire complex software system. Although intended as visualization method, products do exist that claim to translate StateChart representations into executable code. These methods typically assume that the resulting FSMs will be run on an RTOS/multihreaded platform, where events are captured and dispatched by the OS to an event queue for use by the appropri
