Rules based policy engine

[matt joyce]

Ryan Meador wrote:
> Steven Kurylo <sk at ...> 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
>
>
> __

Ryan, what approach have your efforts taken already?
Any interesting insights to the problem?

Matt