You may hate my answer, but here it goes. What you are asking about is definitely possible to do. First you already have the schemes, the data, and the actors persisted in a storage. Second, you already have a system that works (in whatever way it was intended to). Third, the challenge is to understand how rule-based systems can be employed to accomplish something on a Match-Evaluate-Act basis.
The approach that I would most likely take is to view the design as a dynamically configurable system, i.e., the rules are not statically written, but use other (parameter) objects to define object attribute values to test the actual data object that has been matched on. Actually, the parameter objects can hold attribute names and Java reflection can be used to discern the actual attribute and then use the attribute value for conditional testing. Where you are using an object-oriented rules engine (which JESS supports), polymorphism also comes into play in your design and must be accounted for. This can be beneficial (and also dangerous if you don't understand how it is working in the rules). The concept of forward-chaining may also be part of the effects in your system. This necessitates a THOROUGH understanding of how the rule engine works BEFORE you begin to build anything. If you have forward-chaining in your rules, don't need it, and don't understand why it is happening then you will probably think "the lunatics are running the asylum", get discouraged and give up. My advice is this: (1) buy the author's book "Jess in Action", read it multiple times, (2) buy the book "Business Rules Applied" by Barbara Von Halle to gain an understanding of how to engineer a rule-based system, (3) build some simple prototypes, and (4) hire a rules engineer who can demonstrate expertise (with sample programs) that is related to your problem. If the rules engineer can "talk the talk" but cannot "walk the walk" then keep looking ! Doin' rules ain't easy - but you'll be amazed at the awesome power of rules (when they are done correctly). Rich Halsey -------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, send the words 'unsubscribe jess-users [EMAIL PROTECTED]' in the BODY of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED], NOT to the list (use your own address!) List problems? Notify [EMAIL PROTECTED] --------------------------------------------------------------------
