Re: scripting/extension language for Ada (was : Re: tagged types extensions)

["Samuel T. Harris" <samuel_t_harris@Raytheon.com>]

Ted Dennison wrote:
> 
> In article <wcc3dr2mq9z.fsf@world.std.com>,
>   Robert A Duff <bobduff@world.std.com> wrote:
> > blaak@infomatch.com writes:
> >
> > For example, I consider the make files and whatnot that are used to
> > build a program and run its regression tests, to be scripts.  But
> these
> > are long-lived pieces of software, and therefore need to be
> > maintainable.  So "easy to write" is mostly irrelevant.
> > "easy to understand, and easy to change" are key.
> 
> I realized while taking an AI class a while back that make is basicly a
> special-purpose AI inference engine. In effect, makefiles constitue the
> rules and knowledge base in an expert system that knows how to build a
> program.

Good point.

> 
> AI folks will readily admit productivity as measured in SLOC/hour is
> *way* lower for expert system development than it is in normal
> imperitive languages.

Having done expert systems in the past, I attribute
the productivity hit not to the domain of inference
rules, but to the sometimes aggrevating process
of "knowledge engineering" which involves getting
the domain expert(s) to tell you why they know
something when they usually just know!

> 
> I'm not sure what can be done about this, though. If you were to try to
> write something in Ada that was even half as flexible, you'd basicly end
> up writing your own custom expert system. In that case you'd be subject
> to the same productivity hit, with the inference engine development time
> tacked onto the front to boot.
> 

-- 
Samuel T. Harris, Principal Engineer
Raytheon, Aerospace Engineering Services
"If you can make it, We can fake it!"