[Development] Request for sandbox area: QQSM

[Sean Harmer]

Hi Brett and welcome,

On 30/05/2014 23:14, Stottlemyer, Brett (B.S.) wrote:
>
> Hi list,
>
> My name is Brett Stottlemyer.  I work for Ford Motor Company, and Ford 
> has graciously agreed to let us contribute some of the cool stuff 
> we've developed back to Qt. We aren't quite done with everything yet 
> (still waiting on the Corporate CLA), but I will be at Qt Contributors 
> Summit in a week and a half to discuss this and a 2nd project, and 
> answer (hopefully a bunch) of good questions.
>
> I'd like to officially request a sandbox for: QQSM
>
> What is it?
>
> QQSM is the Qt QML State Machine.  Simply put, it is a QML module to 
> allow you to create Qt State Machine Framework instances via the QML 
> engine.
>

This sounds really great to me. I've worked on a number of projects that 
make use of QStateMachine et al and being able to define the state chart 
using QML would save having to write a ton of boilerplate and remove the 
need to subclass in many situations.

> What need does this module solve?
>
> QQSM makes it a lot easier to create state machines.  You get all of 
> the benefits of the maturity of Qt's State Machine Framework, the 
> ability to introspect/debug the machine with tools like gammaray, but 
> with a simplified syntax and QML's runtime bindings.  An example of 
> the simplification?  A guard condition for a transition can use 
> QML/javascript and use signal parameters in deciding whether to 
> trigger a transition -- entirely in QML markup.
>
> Detailed description
>
> QQSM is basically a Domain Specific Language (in QML) for simplified 
> descriptions of State Machines.  While the C++ State Machine Framework 
> is complete, it requires a lot of boilerplate code.  The examples I've 
> seen have created numerous QSignalTransition derived classes, one for 
> each boolean condition required to test for a transition.
>
> While QML already has a State type, this is not a complete, 
> deterministic state machine.  This is an overly simplified state 
> machine, in that it provides little in terms of error checking or 
> nested states.
>
> The proposed QQSM module, on the other hand, provides BasicState (to 
> not conflict with existing State type), HistoryState and FinalState, 
> plus StateMachine, SignalTransition and TimeoutTransition types.  The 
> benefit of QML for State Machines is much more than just having to 
> write less code, though.  Two features of the QML engine are runtime 
> processing of scripted code, and dynamic Signal/Slot connections.  
> Since all SignalTransition classes provide a boolean result for 
> eventTest(), a single C++ implementation was created that uses a 
> boolean property ("guard") for the eventTest result.  This allows any 
> QML/Javascript expression that resolves to a boolean to be used.  The 
> dynamic connections make is easy to bind onEntry and onExit signals to 
> non-state machine QObjects.
>
> The end result is an environment that allows State Machines to be 
> developed rapidly and succinctly.
>
> Hope you like the idea, and approve the sandbox area.
>

+1 from me. I'd love to see this made available.

> Looking forward to your thoughts!
>

Thank you for offering this to the community!

Cheers,

Sean

-- 
Dr Sean Harmer | sean.harmer at kdab.com | Managing Director UK
Klarälvdalens Datakonsult AB, a KDAB Group company
Tel. Sweden (HQ) +46-563-540090, USA +1-866-777-KDAB(5322)
KDAB - Qt Experts - Platform-independent software solutions

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