53 lines
1.6 KiB
Markdown
53 lines
1.6 KiB
Markdown
---
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created_at: '2011-05-02T17:41:33.000Z'
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title: My baby, the finite state machine (2006)
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url: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jmstall/archive/2006/09/13/baby-state-machine.aspx
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author: gokhan
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points: 105
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story_text: ''
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comment_text:
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num_comments: 17
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story_id:
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story_title:
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story_url:
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parent_id:
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created_at_i: 1304358093
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_tags:
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- story
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- author_gokhan
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- story_2507106
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objectID: '2507106'
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year: 2006
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---
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My 19-month old daughter was quite the finite state machine today.
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She's recently become mobile and ended up getting her finger caught in a
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door for the first time. It gave her a little blood blister and the new
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experience inspired her to cry for a very very long time. My wife tried
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everything to get her to stop crying. She eventually put her in her
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crib. When she took her out of the crib, our daughter stopped crying.
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Here's how I see it: Our daughter normally cries when first placed her
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in crib, and stops crying when taken out. So that action triggers the
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state transition ("crying because I'm in the crib" --\> "not crying").
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By placing our daughter in the crib, my wife got her from an unknown
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state ("crying because I just hurt myself in a new way") to a known
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state ("crying because I'm in the crib"). Once in a known state, she
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could follow the known state transitions to get her to a more desirable
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state ("not crying").
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That's not what they teach you in the parenting classes, but since it
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worked, I can't argue with success\!
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(This reminds me of [what my dog taught me about race
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conditions](http://blogs.msdn.com/jmstall/archive/2005/08/01/sofie_race_condition.aspx).)
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