The structure, moving
The cascade is the work.
A hierarchical state machine holds its activity at the deepest level that explains the event. Most events touch only the innermost compartment; structural events propagate outward. Watching the cascade is watching the system decide how much of itself the event was about.
F=HSM · K=OR-hierarchical · R=event-driven t = 0.0s
Inner transitions
0
events handled in place
Cascading transitions
0
events that propagated outward
Inner-only ratio
—
share of work that stayed local
events arrive…
Most events are handled where the active path already is. Only structural events — the ones that change the mode — have to propagate outward. The hierarchical machine is doing less work than the same logic flattened to a single level would do, because most of its structure is already saying yes to the event.
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