I wanted to seriously question the current approach for declaring state machines in code using the StateMachine<T> class and IState/IStateMachineProvider interfaces (Predefined State Transitions Created in Code) and hear what you think of it in general. The main reasons behind this interest are the limitations this originally implemented approach has compared to other available solutions and hence associated support costs.
"Yet Another Controller"©
In fact, in certain scenarios, creating a custom Controller with the SingleChoiceAction Action or a set of SimpleAction Actions can be simpler and more straightforward than defining a coded State Machine at a domain level. To give you a concrete example of such an alternative solution, check out this Controller that eventually does the same thing as the code in the original documentation article above, but with old-good SimpleAction objects manipulated on View and other suitable events. You can find another example with a SingleChoiceAction in this test project (it's from this SC ticket, so process it with the Project Converter tool first). Even though the alternative Controller-based approach requires more code, it allows you to provide a more granular control over created states and their visual representations. It is cleaner and easier to understand/extend for other business requirements, because it is your own code that uses only the basic XAF APIs.
Implications of using the questioned approach
Contrary to that, the questioned approach is really a bit shorter with the help of 'state', 'transition' and 'state appearance' abstractions defined near your business class, but everything has its own trade offs.
Contrary to that, the questioned approach is really a bit shorter with the help of 'state', 'transition' and 'state appearance' abstractions defined near your business class, but everything has its own trade offs.
