[rules-users] Thoughts about rule authoring

[Bruno Freudensprung]

Hi Michael,

Thanks for taking time answering my message. Now I realize it was not 
very clear.
"Person" was never provided as an option, but I would love it did so 
:-). If you had time, let me explain in a few words.

For the moment, Drools completion engine provides quite the same 
functionality for the rule language an IDE provides for the Java 
language. Don't get me wrong, as a Java developper I think it is really 
fantastic! And, as a Java developer, I know that know the code 
completion engine cannot suggest anything about the value of a String 
("/Person/Jim").

What I wanted to say is: as Drools is not only targetted to Java 
developers, "business users" might expect (and they actually do) 
something more. They know that rules will apply on their data. Data 
exists and "business users" know their data (they know about that 
"/Person/Jim" does exist). However, as they don't know anything about 
the impossibility in Java to suggest the content of a String (they are 
not Java developers), they don't understand why the completion engine 
can't keep on suggesting "/Person/Jim". Somehow they have Google search 
in mind, that starts suggesting words as soon as you type your query. 
Here in Drools it could be even more accurate since the suggestion 
engine knows that the "/Person/name" String is wanted for the "name" 
field of the "Annotation" class. So maybe it could offer a suggestion 
hook method, even for Strings. As a Java developer, I could implement it 
for my business users. This would prevent business users from having to 
write Java-developer-oriented solutions you proposed (and I thank you 
for your proposals by the way :-)).

I say I have the impression to be "in the middle" because I could have a 
Person class (and I probably should), but I can't have a class for every 
first name (Jim)

I know this is completely out of the scope of a rule engine, however it 
would fit Drools editor so well that I wanted to say it.

Anyway, sorry for bothering you with my "delirium" ;-).

Best regards,

Bruno.


Le 16/09/2011 17:53, Michael Anstis a écrit :
> You could externalise the paths for the annotations:-
>
> MyConfigurationSettings( $jimPath : pathToJimAnnotations )
> jim : Annotation( name = $jimPath )
>
> (where MyConfigurationSettings is a fact inserted into WM).
>
> or
>
> MyConfigurationSettings( $jimPath : pathToJimAnnotations ) from 
> $globalServiceObject.getMeMySettings( )
> jim : Annotation( name = $jimPath )
>
> (where MyConfigurationSettings is available from a - perhaps - 
> Hibernate query).
>
> I am surprised "Person" was provided as an option (without knowing the 
> auto-complete code in any detail). Perhaps it is a class on your 
> classpath?
>
> With kind regards,
>
> Mike
>
> On 16 September 2011 16:37, Bruno Freudensprung 
> <bruno.freudensprung at temis.com <mailto:bruno.freudensprung at temis.com>> 
> wrote:
>
>     Hi,
>
>     I have a remark, maybe its just out of scope... however as it is
>     in the
>     perspective of enabling end users to deal with their business domain,
>     leaving appart the technical aspects (which is one of strong points of
>     Drools), here it is.
>
>     Drools is great because it enables to express things simply. For
>     instance, in my company, we are annotating text. So our rules look
>     like:
>     when
>         jim: Annotation (name = "/Person/Jim")
>         boston: Annotation (name = "/City/Boston")
>         ...
>     However, in the end, it turns out that what is inside Strings is
>     part as
>     well of our business domain. Maybe it is probably stored into a
>     database
>     or whatever.
>
>     So, in my dreams (and, surprisingly, so said the customer I saw
>     yesterday and that didn't know anything about Drools!!), when I
>     Ctrl-space at the beginning of the String (after "/P), the rule
>     authoring environment suggests "/Person", juste because it knows,
>     somehow, that annotations can be one of those (maybe in absolute,
>     or in
>     that particular context).
>
>     Would you say that I completely lost my mind? :-) Or more prosaically
>     that there is a design flaw in my data model?
>     Personnally I have the impression to be somewhere in the middle...
>
>     Best regards,
>
>     Bruno.
>
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