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<TITLE>Understanding "rule flow"</TITLE>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Hi,</FONT>
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<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">So 4.0M2 will have "rule flow" ("Ruleflow: when you absolutely positively have to make something happen in the right order", Michael Neale 12/03/2007) bundled with it.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">This will be a terrific benefit to our user base who will struggle untold issues trying to understand and write rules that should have no order of precedence (they like the procedural "do A", "do B", "do C" approach!). What I would like explained though is how ruleflow affects the function of a RETE network and hence the overall performance of a ruleset. I see from Kris Verlaenen's blog that the ruleflow definitions are divorced from the rule definitions and therefore suspect (as proven by a trawl through the code) that ruleflow works with the current concepts of agenda, agenda groups and activation groups.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">I can see from the source that RuleFlowGroups control what activations are added to the Agenda but am uncertain of the relationship between RuleFlowGroups and RuleFlow definitions and rules themselves.</FONT></P>
<P><FONT SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Is it possible, time permitting ;-), that somebody with the relevant knowledge could put a few words together to explain how RuleFlow works?</FONT></P>
<P><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">With kind regards,</FONT>
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<P><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=2 FACE="Arial">Mike</FONT>
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