RE: [cam] RE: Drools and CAM

["David RR Webber \(XML\)" <david@drrw.info>]

Mark,

 

forall() is an essential and powerful mechanism.  Will you also be implementing the Prolog cut() notion?  Essential for limiting recursion in rule solutions.

 

However - I suspect for most of our applications in CAM - the mundane will be more than enough.

 

The multi-partner / multi-task collaborations in BPSS / jBPM obviously require much more state management and dynamic ruleset management.  The concept of a state machine.

 

CAM is designed as a single threaded process that performs a descreet task around a particular business transaction. 

 

Within a transaction I can forsee need for DROOLS to manage state - again lookiing at our grant applciations - we have budget years and line items within budget - so a lot of facts can be asserted there - and then crosschecked once all budget items have been accumulated.

 

I like the idea of being able to separate the DROOLS into partions - however - I'm thinking this should work already with v2 - if we persist the DROOLS engine across invokations from CAM - and then have functions that perform the assertions and the comparisons in separate DROOLS scripts - collaborating but independently performed.

 

Cheers, DW

> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Re:
> [cam] RE: Drools and CAM
> From: Mark Proctor
> <mproctor@codehaus.org>
> Date: Mon, January 02, 2006 12:57
> pm
> To: "David Webber (XML)" <david@drrw.info>
> Cc:
> martin.me.roberts@bt.com,
> TANVEER_ASHIQUE@bah.com,
> cam@lists.oasis-open.org
>
> Some of the
> more advanced features with rule engines are the checks for 
> the
> existence and non existence of facts and constraints, via NOT and
> EXIST - this is more than a standard boolean !. Also we later hope
> to 
> improve that further to support forall and accumulate
> functionality, 
> which makes it easier dealing with quantities and
> sets of data. 
> ark,There is 
> also a paper on temperal rules, that
> jrules is based on, that we want to 
> eventually integrate. Finally
> its wort mentioning that rule engines 
> allow rules to be added and
> removed at runtime, without the need to 
> repopulate a working
> memory.
>
> Mark
> David Webber (XML) wrote:
> >
> Martin,
> >
> > I look forward to Marks'
> comments.
> >
> > I'm wondering if he is west coast based -
> giving us an 8 hour time spread
> > here...
> >
> > What
> I'm envisioning using DROOLS for is complex business logic.
>  For
> > example - in the grants application processing we
> have implemented in java -
> > an applicant can resubmit their
> application.  Then the validation runs
> > something like this
> -
> >
> > if (resubmission) and (prior grant # entered) and
> (phase2 submission)
> > check prior grant
> >   if (for
> this applicants organization) and
> >   if (not awarded) and
> (pending or in review)
> >   and (was submitted in previous
> council round)
> > then
> >   accept
> >   action
> - mark prior application as superceded
> >
> > Needless to say
> this is not doable with XPath alone - requiring queries to
> > the
> database - and checking of various conditions and values between
> the
> > backend data and the XML data.
> >
> >
> DW
> >
> > ----- Original Message ----- 
> > From:
> <martin.me.roberts@bt.com>
> > To:
> <mproctor@codehaus.org>; <david@drrw.info>
> > Cc:
> <TANVEER_ASHIQUE@bah.com>;
> <cam@lists.oasis-open.org>
> > Sent: Monday, January 02, 2006
> 7:36 AM
> > Subject: [cam] RE: Drools and
> CAM
> >
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> >  In JCAM I have
> built in a mechanism to have DROOLS perform the
> > DataValidation
> section of the CAM Spec.  The idea is that by passing in a
> >
> set of nodes described by an XPath it would be posible to invoke a
> script
> > that would then work with the nodes supplied.
> >
> This is done by describing a Java Class that allows the nodes to be
> added to
> > the DROOLS working memory and allow the consequences
> to interact with the
> > nodes by changing values etc.
> > It
> seems to work reasonably well and is very simple to
> implement.
> >
> > I am also toying with the idea of using the
> DROOLS ApplicationData construct
> > to allow the rules engine to
> be passed the either the template or the
> > xmlfile.  This
> would enable DROOLS to manipulate the complete tree and
> >
> possibly transform the output based on the rules.  The other
> extension would
> > be to allow the DROOLS to be passed an empty
> document that it could use to
> > hang new constructs off based on
> the rules firing.
> >
> > One of the questions I have is what
> rules might be applied.  Without some
> > clear examples it if
> not easy to know how to integrate the tool.  It seems
> > to me
> that DROOLS could be used in two parts of the CAM template -
> >
> DataValidations and External Mappings.
> >
> > One further
> thing I am investigating for jCAM is the use of PicoContainer
> as
> > a method to allow the other processors to be included into
> the processor.
> > The idea being that for each section of the CAM
> template a processor would
> > be passed three possible things -
> the XML file being processed, the Assembly
> > Structure after the
> Business Rules hade been applied and the section of the
> > CAM
> template the applied to the processor being plugin.  The advantage
> of
> > this method is that we can get the whole of the CAM Spec done
> by different
> > people yet all work with the same tool.  It
> also means that somebody can
> > change the default processor with
> another without affecting the other bits.
> > For example if I get
> the split right we should be able to allow schema based
> >
> includes without disrupting the rest of the tool.
> >
> > Happy
> New Year
> >
> > Martin
> >
> >
> ________________________________
> >
> > From: Mark Proctor
> [mailto:mproctor@codehaus.org]
> > Sent: Mon 02/01/2006
> 05:46
> > To: David RR Webber (XML)
> > Cc:
> TANVEER_ASHIQUE@bah.com; CAM TC; Roberts,MME,Martin,XBX R
> >
> Subject: Re: Drools and CAM
> >
> >
> > Sure no problem, we
> are always there - just letting you know, in case you
> > need any
> help with Drools.
> >
> > Mark
> > David RR Webber (XML)
> wrote:
> >
> > Mark,
> >
> > We'll see who it goes.
>  My time is extremely short this week - will attend
> > to the
> PPT first.  Maybe some of the other folks on the list may want to
> hop
> > over for a chat....
> >
> > Thanks,
> DW
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > -------- Original Message
> --------
> > Subject: Re: Drools and CAM
> > From: Mark Proctor
> <mproctor@codehaus.org>
> <mailto:mproctor@codehaus.org>
> > Date: Sun, January 01,
> 2006 10:38 pm
> > To: "David Webber (XML)" <david@drrw.info>
> <mailto:david@drrw.info>
> > Cc: TANVEER_ASHIQUE@bah.com, CAM
> TC <cam@lists.oasis-open.org>
> >
> <mailto:cam@lists.oasis-open.org> , Martin
> > Roberts
> <martin.me.roberts@bt.com>
> <mailto:martin.me.roberts@bt.com>
> >
> > IRC isn't a
> list it's a live chat room where you can talk to me and the
> >
> other developers - no need to subscribe, just pop in and have a chat
> :)
> >
> > Mark
> > David Webber (XML)
> wrote:
> >
> > Mark,
> >
> > Your PPT is a great
> introduction to the world of rule engines and
> >
> methods.
> >
> > My own background is heavily Prolog - for 15
> years.  I missed seeing
> > constraint based solutioning - but
> I guess DROOLS has to leave
> > somethings to
> > those old
> purpose built engines!  And besides DROOLS could always
> >
> collaborate with a Prolog engine as a close cousin.... ;
> -)
> >
> > On to CAM and DROOLS.  I have some PPT slides I
> will share during the
> > week
> > once I've cleaned them up for
> external perusal.
> >
> > Basically the notion is to use the
> mechanisms in CAM - that is
> > essentially a
> > domain expert
> agent in XML structures and metadata - and provide an
> > interface
> directly in CAM to DROOLS and back again.  Then we're
> adding
> > the
> > ability to persist to SQL databases in CAM
> directly from the XML source
> > -
> > using simple XML syntax
> based assignment instructions.
> >
> > This should allow people
> who are not DROOLS experts - to create a
> > business-centric
> solution that quickly handles basic ebusiness
> > transactions -
> while allowing extended rules to be layered into this -
> >
> by
> > software staff - that handle decreet rules and tests that
> are beyond the
> > scope of the base CAM function
> set.
> >
> > This gives people the best of both worlds - a
> purpose built business XML
> > expert agent - coupled to the
> extensible DROOLS engine.
> >
> > Your snippet of DROOLS V3
> shows that this is all heading in the right
> >
> direction.
> >
> > We've been experimenting with:
> >
> <as:includeScript location="{url/my.drl}"/>
> > and
> >
> <as:executeScript name="{name.drl}"
> parm="\\xpath\locator\*"/>
> >
> > as a first pass to
> provide linkage between the two.
> >
> > I am definately
> interested in discussing this with the DROOLS community
> >
> -
> > where CAM can provide a pluggable XML handler toolkit for
> DROOLS users?
> >
> > Beyond all this - DROOLS also looks like
> a good means to implement a
> > state
> > machine for BPSS (and
> JBOSS driven BPM) as envisioned in our BCM
> > architecture work -
> but we'll solve one problem at a time here!
> >
> > I'm a bit
> allergic to signing up for IRC lists - my daily bandwidth is
> >
> severally constrained already - but we can definately look at
> sharing
> > some
> > collaboration resources - possibly a wiki
> area - where ideas and test
> > components can be
> posted..?
> >
> > Thanks, DW
> >
> > ----- Original
> Message ----- 
> > From: "Mark Proctor"
> <mproctor@codehaus.org>
> <mailto:mproctor@codehaus.org>
> > To:
> <david@drrw.info> <mailto:david@drrw.info> ;
> <TANVEER_ASHIQUE@bah.com>
> >
> <mailto:TANVEER_ASHIQUE@bah.com>
> > Sent: Sunday, January
> 01, 2006 2:24 PM
> > Subject: Drools and
> CAM
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > David,
> Tanveer,
> >
> > GoogleAlert brought your postings to my
> attention. We have big plans for
> > Drools 3.0, which will be
> available at the end of Q1 - see the slides
> at
> >
> >
> >
> >
> http://drools.org/download/attachments/20545/Business+Rules+Engines.ppt?version=1
> >
> >
> >
> for more details.
> >
> > In the mean time if there is anything
> more we can do to assist or you
> > just want a general chat, we
> are always on the irc server #drools at
> > irc.codehaus.org - we
> provide a web gateway at http://irc.codehaus.org
> >
> <http://irc.codehaus.org/>
> > if you do not want to install
> an IRC client.
> >
> >
> Mark
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
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