[Mongrel] [OT] Ragel and FSM tutorials

[cremes.devlist at mac.com]

This is off-topic.

I'm hoping someone on this list can point me towards more general  
information on finite state machines, their definition, how to build  
them, determining when to apply them, etc. I read Zed's blog entry  
from way back when covering Ragel [1] but he hasn't followed it up  
and there aren't many pointers to external information.

I've googled around and found a reasonable amount of information on  
Ragel, but I'm not so interested in knowing how to use that  
particular tool as I am in learning about finite state machines *in  
general*.

Thanks to anyone who has good pointers on docs, tutorials or good  
source code examples (any language). I'd also appreciate any  
suggestions on books (college texts or whatever) that cover this  
subject.

cr