Steven Kurylo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > The problem with this is that one needs to think like a programmer to > > describe your "ideal phone" as a set of rules like these. Not only does > > one have to think analytically and dissect their concept into orthogonal, > > machine-checkable rules, but from your examples it's also clear that for > > such a wide range of possibilities a whole *language* with *expressions* > > (at least boolean) is necessary. > > I see it as something like sieve. Its a pretty full language for > writing rules. I, as a programmer, I do almost anything I want. For > the non-programmers there are various GUIs which allow you to do all > the simple tasks with a couple clicks. In fact filter email is fairly > similar: if these three things are true, do X. Then I have a stack of > rules and it goes through them one at time until one is true. > > xpath might work. There are a few options, though I would try to stay > away from writing our own if it can be helps. A plan old python class > might be enough with function for each possible condition. >
I think what we're looking for here is Prolog (or something very similar). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prolog. I'd be very interested in contributing to (and using!) a rule-based system such as this. In addition to providing an inference-based rules engine written in first order predicate logic, it has the unique ability of adding rules with side effects (basically executing native code) when certain things happen... I think it would work nicely (it basically is for this purpose). I already had plans to create a rule-based system for the moko myself (an adaptation of a prolog-like inference system that I already have under construction). Due to the memory and processing constraints on the moko and the desire to reuse code whenever possible (which I agree with wholeheartedly), I think going with Prolog is probably a better choice than trying to finish my hacked-together and unproven inference engine. Now if only my Freerunner would arrive... dunno why it's been delayed by a week before shipping. Ryan Meador _______________________________________________ Openmoko community mailing list community@lists.openmoko.org http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community