routineb

Routineb is a design concept for organizing sequences of computational tasks into reusable, time-bounded routines connected by explicit transitions. Building on the idea of a routine, routineb adds a base layer that clarifies how routines are composed, scheduled, and guarded by conditions. In practice, a routineb description specifies small, self-contained tasks with clear entry and exit points, and guards that determine when control moves from one routine to the next. The approach emphasizes determinism in embedded and real-time contexts and supports fault isolation by keeping routines loosely coupled.

Structure and mechanism: A routineb sequence consists of a cycle or tree of routines. Each routine implements a small task and may report completion, failure, or blocking. Transitions are controlled by predicates or signals. A central scheduler advances the active routine according to the guards, reusing code through parameterization. Variants include hierarchical routineb, where a routine can execute a sub-routineb, and dynamic routineb, where the active sequence adapts to inputs in real time.

Applications: Routineb appears in contexts requiring predictable task orchestration, such as embedded control, robotics, automated workflows, and game AI. It supports modular design, reusability, and easier testing, because each routine can be developed and verified in isolation. Example: a routineb cycle for a robotic pick-and-place task might include a pick routine, a move routine, and a place routine, with guards that switch to an error-handling routine if sensors report a fault.

History and reception: The term routineb is mainly used in theoretical discussions and occasional design-pattern literature rather than as a widely adopted standard. It is sometimes proposed as an educational counterpart to finite state machines and behavior trees, offering a middle ground between rigid state machines and fully dynamic scripting.