A lesson for software engineering from knowledge engineering

Knowledge engineering has developed fine tools for maintaining the integrity of knowledge bases. These tools may be applied to the maintenance of conventional programs particularly those programs in which business rules are embedded. A unified model of knowledge represents business rules at a higher level of abstraction than the rule-based paradigm. Representation at this high level of abstraction enables any changes to business rules to be quantified and tracked through to the imperative programs that implement them. Further, methods may be applied to simplify the unified model so that the maintenance of the imperative implementation too is simplified. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2003.