State Machine

The Problem with Switch-Based State Machines When building state machines in Go, many developers reach for switch statements. While this works for simple cases, it quickly becomes unwieldy as your state machine grows. Each state transition requires scanning through multiple case blocks, and adding new states means touching existing code in multiple places. Let me show you a cleaner approach: using functions as first-class values to represent states. This pattern leverages Go’s ability to treat functions as data, creating elegant, extensible state machines. ...

Beyond Traditional State Machines Most state machines are synchronous: you call a method, the state transitions, and you get a result. But what if your state machine needs to react to multiple concurrent events? What if state transitions should happen asynchronously based on timeouts, external signals, or user input? Enter the select-based state machine: a pattern that combines Go’s channels and select statements to create responsive, event-driven state machines that can handle multiple inputs simultaneously. ...