I'm a bit stumped here. I don't even know whether I've got a problem or not or if I do whether to do something about it ..or not.
N.B. Hereafter, (NAP= that's not a problem, that's how the "boat" is required to be)
I have this set of things that fit into an organizational heirarchy (NAP). The heirarchy is structured and finite (NAP), in fact three levels only. Each level can be in a defined and organized set of states, each level having the same states (NAP).
There are 4 states for the levels:
- proposed
- active
- obsolete
- notational
and a whole shipload of transition constraints. (NAP)
Thank you for your patience, here's the beginning of the problem.
"Proposed" has three substates:
- draft
- developmental
- ready
There is only one state transition, I am currently trying to flesh out proposed-->active.
One of the transition constraints is "only if substate = ("developmental" or "ready"). IOW, if the item is in substate "draft" then the proposed-->active transition is illegal. This is again NAP (I could just show transitions between the two valid substates and "active")...
BUT
What I want to show is :
You can go from proposed-->active regardless of your substate, unless you are specifically prohibited! IOW, the real constraint at the state level is "!(substate = draft)". This is fine today, BUT tomorrow the number of substates will change (they have done more than once already).
So, neither rendition ( subState--> state, or state --[Condition]--> state )is really giving me much joy.
Any "good practice" advice? (Apart from the obvious, I lack both the flexibility and the plumbig tools.)
bruce