Hi,

I'm interested in developing (if it doesn't already exist) and then using a framework for agent-based modeling in which the agents are rule driven. An important feature is that the agents and their rules must be dyanically manipulable. That is, both the agents and the rules must be first class objects that can be manipulated as the system is running. Can Drools support that?

As someone not familiar with Drools I did my best to find out by looking at the Drools Expert User's Manual. From what I could tell, the Template feature in which one uses Java objects as Template data sources comes close.  I'd like your advice before putting too much development effort into attempting to use it for that purpose.

In particular, would it be possible to set up a mechanism that could: create and delete agents on the fly; associate rule sets with agents on the fly; and modify the rules associated with an agent on the fly?  After each such action the system would change to reflect the change in agents and rules.

Thanks for your help.

-- Russ Abbott

P.S. If Drools would not be a good choice, is there some other system that you could recommend?