Stateful vs Stateless is an abstract concept that explains systems with memory (or lack thereof) inside Resonite. It is considered that stateless systems are easier to maintain compared to stateful ones.
Stateful Systems
A stateful system holds onto memory of a state, many components would be considered stateful as they hold information in fields. Impulsing many nodes would be considered stateful as you send in inputs and have to pulse the node to have it calculate a result to then be used or stored somewhere (like a Write node for DataModelStores).
Stateless Systems
A stateless system just takes in inputs and gives out the outputs without the need of impulses or storing information of a previous state in memory. In the context of Resonite, a stateless system would not have DataModelStores nor any nodes that can be treated as a store (i.e. Boolean Latch).
Many math functions, for example, can be considered stateless as they only take in a number and output a new number without needing to call anything.
Examples
- Many web applications have the server hold states and the server would be considered stateful, while HTTP is stateless (for client-side applications).