Petri Nets
Petri Nets are a mathematical modeling language used to describe and analyze systems characterized by concurrency, synchronization, and resource sharing. They consist of places, transitions, and arcs that represent states, events, and flow of tokens, enabling the study of dynamic behavior in distributed and parallel systems. Developed by Carl Adam Petri in the 1960s, they are widely applied in computer science, engineering, and workflow management.
Developers should learn Petri Nets when working on systems with concurrent processes, such as distributed computing, network protocols, or manufacturing automation, as they provide a formal method to detect deadlocks, analyze reachability, and ensure correctness. They are particularly useful in software engineering for modeling and verifying complex workflows, parallel algorithms, or hardware designs, helping to identify potential issues before implementation.