[gbear0]

Did you start programming with OOP or Functional programming? Did learning how to programming in the other form seem difficult to understand why you would do things that way, or seem obtuse vs just using the ways you already know?

I think using state machines is just a very different way of looking at code, and it does take some mind bending to think that way; but once you do, it's much easier to blend the code together the same way you'll see imperative and functional code blended together these days and not think twice about it.

[jhgb]

How are state machines "a very different way of looking at code"? It's basically assembly with jumps as state transitions. A decent programmer already understands this from assembly lessons (and avoids doing it by hand, leaving it to the compiler).