Instant Experts

Dateline: 08/06/99

Frequent changes in development environments and tools are one of the constants in a life of a modern professional programmer. Just as soon as you've learned all about it (and even started to like it), you have to change it: either as a part of company's policy or your desire to keep up with the new technological developments. One of the more benign examples of this process is shift from DAO to RDO and finally ADO in recent editions of Microsoft's data access interfaces integrated in their development tools.

Expert system software provides the foundation you'll need to capture the knowledge and experience of your experts and make it available to the people who require it.

Looking for a new development tool? Several new rule-based expert system development environments promise to bring the productivity gains that come from the use of rule-based abstractions. That's not all: many of them offer multiplatform support and generate high-performance application code. And for those among you tired of painful debugging process and complicated C++ code, some of these tools even include English-like programming languages. OK, developers of Cobol and Prolog were claiming that for years, but this time they are really close...

AION

Platinum Technology Inc.'s Aion 8 is one of the newest tools for multiplatform (Win32, UNIX, MVS) enterprise development tools featuring rule-based abstractions. IDE in Aion 8 closely resembles that of Microsoft's Visual Studio, which means that great deal of experienced programmers will feel at home with it. At the same time, environment is less cluttered by property sheets and other indicators. Its English-like language will be easy to learn even for non-programmers.
It is possible to package Aion modules as COM (Component Object Model) or CORBA (Common Object Request Broker Architecture) objects, making them easy to use in a variety of distributed and multitier object environments. One of the very important features enables the process of compiling a high-level rule-based application into an efficient C++ executable module.

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KAPPA-PC

The KAPPA-PC application development system was one of the first truly-hybrid PC tools that combine technologies essential to the rapid development of low-cost and high-impact business applications. However, it is a 16-bit Windows-only product that might not meet modern enterprise needs for scalability and integration. The major elements of KAPPA-PC are interactive, graphical development environment; database access objects using ODBC; and KAPPA-PC Application Language, KAL - an object-oriented, integrated, high-level language for rapidly defining, building, testing, and refining applications without stopping to compile and link.
KAPPA-PC is less resource-intensive than other competitors in this area, and integrates well in the Windows environment. However, it lacks the multiplatform support of AION and ART*Enterprise, and might not scale well to fit the needs of modern enterprise developer.

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ART*Enterprise

Brightware's ART*Enterprise is the one of the premier development tools for building Web-enabled intelligent applications, and has an great record for delivering high-performance applications. It provides a rich environment for rapid prototyping, object-oriented programming, and quick development of intelligent applications using case-based reasoning and pattern matching rules.
ART*Enterprise includes full featured multiple inheritance object model for clear representation of business objects and their associated methods. In incudes several standard and well-tested technologies for rapid development of advanced applications. For example, rules are used for capturing formal policies and heuristic logic in modular sets of criteria and action pairs, and case-based reasoning solves new problems by searching for similar past cases and adapting their solution to the current situation. Hypothetical reasoning supports "what if" analysis and maintains knowledge base consistency.
ART*Enterprise provide point and click integration of multiple database sources into objects, automatically generating SQL and database table definitions. Developers can integrate ART*Enterprise applications into existing systems by using an open API that supports both dynamic linking and static linking with C++ call-in and call-out capabilities. The ART*Enterprise/Web add-on library provides World Wide Web integration.
ART*Enterprise is full 32-bit application with several multiplatform options. Its LISP-like ARTScript language, with prefix notation and multiple nested levels of parentheses, will be more easily adopted by seasoned programmers than by beginners or business unit personnel.

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Exsys

MultiLogic Exsys Developer, Exsys Web Runtime, and Exsys Runtime offer developers the complete environment they need to develop an enterprise-wide, online advice application. This product line has been refined over 16 years, with users in a wide variety of industries. It is designed to allow the subject expert to build applications or directly participate in the development process.
Exsys Web Runtime allows users to deploy finished expert systems (created with Developer) directly on the target Web site or intranet, while "ordinary" Exsys Runtime allows for stand-alone deployment, including client/server applications. Each product in the Exsys family uses the MultiLogic Exsys Inference Engine. The engine takes the expert system rules and combines them with user data to determine the best recommendation for the user's specific situation. The user can interact with the engine in much the same way as they would a human expert.

They key component, Exsys Developer is a rule-based expert system development environment. It provides the author with two methods for creating rules: a visual decision tree interface and a single rule editor. Tree diagrams allow rules to be rapidly created in a graphic environment that allows the logic of a problem to be viewed and developed at the same time. Creating and editing in the rule editor allows more complex logic to be input into the system that could not be represented in a tree diagram. Both of the interface options allow the author to create the rules in plain English, resulting in understandable and readable application code.

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Others

This is by no means complete review of expert system development environments. Many of the tools are left out, and many of them will be tested and reviewed separately in the future. For example, The Haley Enterprise has several excellent tools for developing "intelligent" applications without changing your current IDE and programming language.
One of their products, ActiveAgentX fully supports Microsoft's Component Object Model. As with other COM objects, ActiveAgentX integrates directly into any application developed with leading Rapid Application Development (RAD) tools for Microsoft Windows 95 and Windows NT including Microsoft Visual Basic, Borland Delphi, and PowerBuilder. It allows decision support systems incorporating business rules to be delivered automatically over corporate intranets to web browsers running Microsoft Windows 95 or NT. ActiveAgentX is based on the 64 bit version of Eclipse and Rete++ for Windows 95 and NT running on Intel Pentium or compatible processors.
There are other options for developers, including Eclipse Enterprise, an embeddable inference engine for desktop and enterprise applications using COM and OBDC under Microsoft Windows 95 and NT, or Authorete, an knowledge management and authoring environment that empowers business people to author business policies and practices in the form of business rules.

Similarly to the products described above, Neuron Data's Advisor is marketed as a "product that makes business rules understandable by mere mortals". Using Advisor, you can create smart Java components that enable existing applications to interact more intelligently, respond to each user as an individual, and adapt dynamically to daily business developments. These components can be deployed as rule servers, JavaBeans, COM or CORBA components, or browser-executable applets.

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