I agree that "always" was a little strong. There are many instances
where the timeout could be avoided. However, in my experience it is
good practice to include the timeout in most instances as it
eliminates the possibility that you get stuck endlessly waiting for an
event to occur and you don't want to trigger an event. Certainly with
proper programming techniques this problem can be avoided (the event
could include the front panel stop button, e.g.), but since most event
structures are already in a loop so that they can handle more than one
event, including an empty timeout event results in very little
overhead. I can think of few instances where the timeout event is
detrimental.
