Dallas Rules Group - 2010

Greetings:

As some of you just learned, I will be working with FICO Product Management full time beginning on Monday, 25 Jan 2010. BUT, I still hope to lead (or co-lead) the Dallas Rules Group (DRG) now that the DRG has returned to its roots of being a local group of rulebase developers. Greg Barton (Southwest Airlines Rule Architect) has agreed to co-host and help lead the group with various kinds of projects.

Now, understand, this could be BRMS (Business Rules Management System) or it might be any other kind of rulebase that is used for forecasting, scheduling, configuration management, diagnosis, homeland security, airport/bus/train security or solving any truly complex problem that might have insufficient data and insufficient knowledge and then reporting on probable results.

So, beginning on the 2nd Tuesday of each month, we will convene (for now) at IBM in Dallas. Later, we might move to either the Sun Location or the Improving Enterprises location on North Dallas Tollway. What I would hope for in addition to DRG would be an Austin Rules Group, a Houston Rules Group, an XXX Rules Group - all local and all coming to October Rules Fest (ORF) each year to participate in a truly technical conference focused on technology and solutions rather than a business-oriented dog-and-pony show. The business guys have many, many conferences of their own, both by vendors such as FICO and ILOG, as well as the granddaddy of them all, the Business Rules Forum (BRF) hosted by Ron Ross et cie. (I hope that the business guys will attend the FICO user conferences that we do annually on many different topics.)

So, see you guys on the 2 Tuesday of each month. Check the web page (hopefully it will be up before the end of the month) for each months location, time, etc.

SDG

jco

Going Home...

Greetings:

Quite a long time ago, there was an old spiritual song called "Going Home." Sometimes I think of that and realize that I don't really have a home. Yesterday a friend of mine asked me if I had ever been outside of the state of Texas - probably because I'm constantly promoting West Texas as THE place to live and work. For curiosity's sake I listed for him the places that I have worked or lived for at least two weeks (most for several months) in my brief life: The list contained 45 different cities, about 8 countries and did not count the few vacation spots. Home for me is where I hang my hats (about 10 of them) and set up my computers (about 7 or 8). Out of all those places and towns, I made the conscious decision to choose West Texas as my home. If there were a number two or three selection it probably would be either San Francisco, CA, or Paris, France.

Anyway, this is not a blog on where I've lived nor how many hat I have nor even the number of computers that I use for various types of research. Rather, it's about returning to the AI family of Neuron Data / Blaze Software / Fair Isaac / FICO. Beginning tomorrow morning (25 Jan 2010) I will be, once again, working with FICO in Product Management - mostly working on Blaze Advisor but, hopefully, branching out into business optimization software such as analytics and forecasting. After all, my master's degree was focused in Quantitative Analysis and Forecasting and I wrote my first white papers (part of my thesis back then) on rulebased systems as used to do early analysis of statistical data for proper analysis.

So, what about the benchmarking programs and things of that nature that I have been doing at KBSC all these years? Again, I'm calling on my old friend in Sweetwater, Texas, Yaakov Kohen, former CTO of KBSC and present-day horse-wrangler, to step in and do that. I will be giving all of my material over to him, along with the spreadsheets, to keep up to date. So, if you have any questions, please contact him at mailto:yaakov@kbsc.com in the future. Don't expect a quick reply since he is just a bit over 70 and still has the ranch to manage in addition to doing benchmarks, writing white papers and doing forecasting programs.

I suppose that Yaakov might be able to wrangle an article or two in InfoWorld should the editors there see past his advanced years and consider only that he is one of the brightest minds in the industry, one of my few mentors, and fairly forthright (non-diplomatic) in his opinions. Also, he is an excellent shot (sniper level) with both rifle and pistol. You HAVE to be to live in Sweetwater - it's the home of the annual Sweetwater Rattlesnake Roundup every year. An shooting pesky coyotes that tend to bring down a whole cow for just a snack on the open range calls for shots of about 1K yards or more.

October Rules Fest will be turned over to one of several person who have expressed an interest in the masochism of conference leadership. We have a 3:00 p.m. conference call tomorrow to kick that off for 2010 and, if you would like to be part of that, just send me your Skype ID and I'll see if I can get it on the list before the call starts.

All in all, I'm looking forward to returning to work with some good friends and moving Blaze Advisor to even greater heights. I'm not sure that this blog will continue - maybe FICO will let me start one with a FICO address like some other folks there.

SDG

jco

Greetings:

About the same time that Texas became a nation (1934, to become a state nine years later), Richard Henry Dana, Jr., began writing an American classic novel called "Two Years Before the Mast" - an intriguing story of his last two years as a common sailor on board the Alert. He finished it about 1840, five years before Texas became a state via a treaty between the two nations. It has become my considered opinion after 30 years in service to various software vendors and 15 years working with rulebase vendors, (I call it "30 Years Before the Mast") that their engineers should pass a two-year (or more) training course as a consultant for that company BEFORE EVER being allowed to touch one line of code.

I say this after having spent considerable time with engineers who work for various (really) major rulebase companies. I have not encountered one (not one at the engineering level) who has ever had to make his living working with customers and, as a direct result, has absolutely no idea about how the their tool is actually used. I do know that there are those who help with consulting who have served their time in engineering, but not the reverse; except for Dr. Charles Forgy and Paul Haley. OK, there may be one or two more but I don't know them.

So, is there a problem? You betcha, Red Ryder!! And a major problem it is as well. It seems that you can't communicate with these guys about real-world problems because they can not grasp the entire problem at once and possibly foresee other problems that might result from their "quick fix" solution. So they slap a band aid (plaster to you English guys) on the problem and really hope and pray that it actually works.

Now, Heads UP senior engineering management guys: make sure that your staff has "real world" experience in actually USING your software BEFORE allowing them to make even the first modification.

SDG

jco

Monkeys, Queens and Cats

Greetings:

[Short rant]

I have been doing AI type work since the late 80's (seems like only yesterday) and, like most who start in AI work or any kind of programming, we start with very simple problems. The first is always the ubiquitous "Hello World" program. The second, if you are learning inheritance or something of that nature, is checking to see if a child is a grandchild of another person or object or checking to see if this object or person is human or a toad and therefore has five fingers on each hand. Something like that.

For most who use rulebase tools we learn (or were supposed to have learned) the problem of how to help direct a monkey to find bananas to satisfy its hunger OR we learn how to solve the constraint problem of four, eight or sixteen queens on a chess board so that they none can capture the other one. The other one (thanks to the Monday night CBS TV series of "The Big Bang") is Schrodinger's cats. I really do think that these are excellent problems for initial learning experience in our little world of AI or its subset of rulebased systems.

Also, I consider MAB the best teaching tools for AI that we have - but it is, after all, a teaching tool for AI geeks, not something that the normal person outside of AI would ever consider. My Daddy used to say that people who do things like that are Educated Idiots or just Book Smart - meaning that they could solve complex problems in class but couldn't hammer a nail into a board nor saw a straight line and, therefore, useless in the real world.

The objection with continuing to solve and/or teach these problems is that once we have done them in class we tend to use them over and over and over in more advanced discussions as though we could not think beyond the beginner level of thought. Whenever we have to explain something outside of our close circle of friends and workmates, we always run back to our "comfort zone" and show "Hello World" or MAB. Also, to those outside of AI, who have never had to solve anything more complex than balancing their checkbooks, these problems seem rather silly and beyond the ken of the ordinary mortal and therefore not something for every day life.

PLEASE! Let's try and bring something to the table that (1) the ordinary mortal can understand and (2) that possibly has some real-world application(s). For example, what if we (a) had a problem in forecasting, or (b) a problem of finding a terrorist in L.A. or (c) how to process fluid flow in a petro-chemical plant so that we ensure that it will not blow up [and what to do if there is that possibility] or (d) complex shift scheduling or maintenance crew assignment or (e) complex resource assignment in a large manufacturing plant or (f) how to configure specialty helicopters?

OK, these are just thoughts. But if we, the AI community, can begin to establish some better examples then maybe we can be accepted and assimilated into the mainstream river of human thought. Maybe...

SDG

jco

Sunday Ramblings

Greetings:

I just went to the following link that was sent to me by a friend:

http://java.sun.com/developer/media/deepdivejavawarehouse.jsp

It is, indeed, refreshing to see the older guys teaching the younger guys in a Sun-sponsored video. Having children (anyone less than 30) teaching a class should be an anomaly, not a normal thing. While we older troops should be enjoying our advancing years, at the same time we should recognize that we have something to contribute back to those same "children" who are still struggling with undocumented code, insufficient requirements and poorly constructed architecture. When they become frustrated with these daily problems, we can help them to understand those problems and show them how to deal with each one in the appropriate manner.

I think that as we deal with old age in our every day life, so then we learn to deal with death when it finally arrives. Some of us feel that we are still young, 20-year-old studs that have become trapped in in old man's body that is heir to all of the aches and pains of advancing years. I have come to think of that as God's way of preparing us for the end of life so that we welcome Death as a friend who has come to take us home and not as a protagonist against whom we have to fight.

But, so long as we stay alert and up to date on changes in the industry, do our own research, analyze our own data and prepare our own reports, then we will continue to amass knowledge and we can filter that new knowledge through the years of the pain of working with those who always "take the easy way out." This would be those programmers and scientists who don't try to understand the underlying principles of the art and science of their industry that is sometimes so elusive and seemingly unavailable to those who have had only a few years trying to make things work the right way when using apparently insufficient material. Nevertheless, having worked with younger programmers most of my life, I have found that if I can show them something new or a better way to do things, then I am usually accepted by my cohorts as just another geek trying to make sense out of senseless requirements.

So, to the older, more experienced technical personnel I say this; keep on learning. Never give up on a problem and turn it over to someone else just to make life easier. It is that very struggle, this exercise of the brain, to solve complex problems that makes us who we are. This struggle that gives us strength is much like a butterfly coming out of a cocoon that gives it the strength to fly away. The daily solving of those complex problems gives us the strength and the courage to manage smaller problems of everyday life.

SDG

jco

Rulebase Benchmarks 2009 Part 3

Greetings:

Once again we return to the world of Rulebase Benchmarks. Benchmarks for rulebased systems seem to have three camps: Those who love them and usually have good numbers to report. Those whose benchmarks are not remarkable one way or the other and are not worried about them; yet. Those who benchmarks are not very good and keep telling their users and/or customers, "Yes. That's OK for academics. But those benchmarks don't represent the 'real world' in which we have to live and work every day."

At October Rules Fest 2009 I asked the T3 (Thursday Think Tank) if they thought benchmarks were important. Dr. Forgy (who has the fastest rulebase engine on the planet Earth - called TECH) and myself (who has spent the past decade exploring benchmarks, their cause and effect) were ardently in favor of such things. FICO (Blaze Advisor) folks were kind of OK with the idea, especially since they use Dr. Forgy's engine in their rulebase. The rest of the group, whose performance was anywhere from just barely OK to abysmal, were not really against using benchmarks but it just wasn't something that they wanted to discuss in public.

So, here's my proposal: If anyone can produce a "real world" benchmark that can be run on any rulebase engine on any platform, PLEASE DO SO!! Otherwise, those of us who are in this for the long haul will continue to examine a rulebase from many different viewpoints but we shall NOT throw out tried and true tests that continually disclose fatal faults in fancy products that will not perform with large data sets combined with large rule sets. Such applications are large banks, large insurance companies, Homeland Security along with "real world" AI problems in rulebased forecasting, petro-chemical processing problems, electrical power grid production problems, shift scheduling for large plants and/or hospitals and anywhere else that will have the many objects - many patterns complex cross products.

Speaking of which, I guess it's about time to publish the 2009 Benchmarks. Our goal is to finish up in December some time so that at least we can say that we finished this year with a completed product. :-)

SDG

jco

World Conference on Artificial Intelligence

Dallas, Texas; Oct 18, 2009, KBSC:

I'm not sure if I learned this poem in Junior High School or High School, probably the latter:

Listen my children and you shall hear

Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere.

Hardly a man is now alive

Who remembers that famous day and year.

Of course you recognize "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. I thought of that poem last night when I was thinking of the upcoming October Rules Fest 2009 to be held in Dallas, Texas, at the Adolphus Hotel from October 26th - 30th. This conference reminded me of the 1956 Dartmouth College conference where the term Artificial Intelligence, AI, was first used. Those were the giants in the computer age then and ORF 2009 has their pride and joy students presenting the future of rulebased computing (a part of AI) in Dallas.

For example, Dr. Charles Forgy, considered one of the godfathers of that technology, will be speaking on parallel rulebased systems, something that no one is doing today. Well, not yet, anyway... But he and a few others at Carnegie Mellon University, CMU, in Pittsburgh, PA, pioneered that concept back in the 1980's. Thomas Cooper, another CMU grad, worked on the early implementations for XCON, a computer configuration program done by CMU under a DoD grant for Digital Equipment Corporation, DEC, that saved DEC over $1M per year in manpower. Tom is the keynote speaker on where the industry started, where they are now, and where they are going. Tom went on to co-author the first book on the language, OPS5, that was used to make life easier for all concerned.

The other pioneers who will be presenting will be Dr. Richard Hicks, inventor of EZ-Xpert rulebased system and considered to be THE expert on Validation and Verification of rulebased systems; Gary Riley, co-inventor of CLIPS (C-Language Interface to Production Systems) which was the first C/C++ implementation of rulebased system and it was specially developed for NASA; Carlos Seranno-Morales, the co-inventor of Neuron Data Advisor, one of the first Java (a computing language like BASIC or COBOL) versions of a rulebased system; Mark Proctor, co-inventor of Drools (Dynamic Object Oriented Language System) that was one of the very first implementations of an XML/Java version of a rulebase and is totally open source; Dr. Hafedh Mili, who wrote all of the early ILOG JRules rulebase tutorials; Dr. Jacob Feldman, inventor of Open Rules, a rulebase that comes with source code; Jason Morris, an early adopter of Jess (Java Expert System Shell), which was the first of the Java implementations of a rulebase a close copy of the CLIPS system, who is a recognized authority, lecturer and teacher on that system; Dr. Daniel Levine, a local professor at University of Texas Arlington, who is not only an early pioneer in Artificial Neural Networks (another division of AI) but also works with rulebased systems, psychology of the inner workings of the mind and is a widely published author; Dr. Gopal Gupta a local professor at University of Texas Dallas who works with constraint-based programming, another part of rulebased systems; Dr. Leon Kappelman (North Texas University) and John Zachman, the leaders in the world of Enterprise Architecture, will be presenting a two hour talk on how all of this can be road-mapped for executives, managers, programmers and users.

All in all, this is one of the most technical conferences in the world. It bridges the gap between academia, industry and software vendors so that there will be greater cohesion and understanding between all concerned. The T3 (Thursday Think Tank) is a highlight of the conference wherein all of the thought leaders get together in a four-hour, open panel discussion (open to all ORF attendees) and discuss what is needed by rulebased systems that will probably set the directions for the rulebase industry for the next decade. Oh, what does all of this have to do with Paul Revere? Nobody seems to remember the Dartmouth College Conference that started all of this.

SDG

jco

(James Owen is the founder of ORF and a globe-trotting consultant on rulebase systems architecture and implementation.)

[Note: The above is being made available to The Dallas Morning News, Fort Worth Star Telegram, London Financial Times, New York Times, and other major media outlets for publication during the week of Oct 19th - 26th. Should you wish to forward to your local newspaper, please feel free to do so.]

Small Corrections

Greetings:

Small corrections to the previous post: Neither Gary nor Leon will actually have their books on sale AT the conference itself. However, should you already have the book(s) mentioned I sure that they would agree to sign them. :-)

SDG

jco

ORF 2009 and the Dartmouth Conference

Greetings:

As you may not know, the term AI (Artificial Intelligence) was first coined by those attending the Dartmouth College Conference way back in 1956. You can read the invitation list at http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/history/dartmouth/dartmouth.html if you like. The absolute best attended that conference. And that is what started our industry.

So, what does that have to do with ORF 2009? Because we have the best of the best of the best speaking at ORF 2009. And some of them are students of those who started all of this way back in 1956. ORF 2009 will be world-shattering and I, for one, have no idea of how to tell the world what we have here. Think of Woodstock - who knew? Well, I know from the white papers that are coming in and from the presentations that are coming in AND from the credentials of those who are speaking that we might never have such an event again.

If you know of anyone in the media who can see the dream, who can grasp what is happening here later this month, PLEASE tell them about it. This is not a Dallas thing. This is not a Texas thing. This is a world-shaking event. And, to reiterate, it might never happen again. The responses that I have heard so far is, "OK, it's a conference on geek stuff. So what? Those happen all the time." Not true. Not like this. Not with THESE kinds of speakers and topics.

I'm not a PR guy. I'm not a marketeer. I'm a geek and I don't know how to get the word out to the rest of the world that this could very well be a once-in-a-lifetime event. So, if you do know someone who can help, please ask them to do that very thing. Thanks,

SDG

jco

October Rules Fest 2009 Update

Greetings:

Lots and lots of things happening at ORF 2009 so let's just get right to it:

Drools Boot Camp, all day Sunday and Monday morning. Free for ORF attendees. Small charge for DBC only. Mark Proctor and Edson Tirelli teaching. See link for details.

Jess Boot Camp, all day Sunday and Monday morning. Free for ORF attendees. Small charge for JBC only. Jason Morris (Jess guru and certified trainer) teaching. See link for details.

Tom Cooper, co-author of "Rule-based Programming With OPS5", will be our Keynote Speaker. Tom goes WAY back and is one of the pioneers of rulebased systems. The book is still available but has been out of print for quite some time.

Discounted Books. We don't have the complete list yet but there will be lots of rulebase specific books deeply discounted (more than Amazon) for ORF attendees. Dr. Kappelman and Gary Riley will have theirs there for signing (if you're into the groupie thing - I am) and I'm sure that we will have some more before the conference starts.

T3 - Thursday Think Tank - is really gearing up to be one of the highlights of the conference. Our take on this is that the outcome might set the direction(s) for rulebased systems (BRMS) for the next decade.

TECH, Dr. Forgy's new algorithm, will be discussed.

Several talks on Complex Event Processing (CEP) by the leaders in the field. Dr. Forgy has stated that this could well be one of the most important advances for rulebased systems for this century.

The Adolphus has dropped their room rates to $129 / night in order to encourage you to stay where the action is. BUT, we have only a limited number of rooms at this rate so get your reservation in early.

STUDENT FEES will be $150 which will also allow them to attend either of the boot camps. We just announced this and already students are signing up. Meaning that they might jolly well take up the conference slots so you need to hurry and get your conference registration NOW !!

Ping Pong / Table Tennis and/or Foosball has been cancelled due to lack of interest. Sorry about that. I was looking forward to a tournament kind of evening.

Speakers: New speakers and assistants - we have 30 of them now and it is a single track conference so you don't have to make those mind-wrenching decisions as to which one to attend.

White Papers and Presentations will be available during the conference for you to load on your computer to follow along.

Brochures will be available at the conference and electronically later this week. (Thanks, Chelanie). This will be a real keep-sake for your Golden Years.

So, if you haven't registered already, do so NOW. He who hesitates is lost. :-)

SDG

jco

Day Two - FICO Decision Management Tools User Group

Greetings:

Wow. Yesterday was good but today was even better. One interesting this is that Oracle was presenting on an idea and their presenter did not know that Oracle had bought a rulebase (two of them, in fact: Rule Burst & Haley Expert Systems) of their own that is a direct competitor to FICO's Blaze Advisor. Weird, really weird.

OK, performance issues - I ran through a brief (55 minute) presentation on how to improve performance. More of how NOT to get into trouble although I did point out some time-proven tips on how to make even Advisor run faster.

Then came the Illinois Death March: We took a bus to the lake for a river cruise. (whater...) The bus dropped us off and we walked past ship after ship after ship. Now, understand, walking a mile is not such a big deal UNLESS you have a bad back, two knees that need to be replaced and pinched nerves in your neck. Then (after a rather nice meal onboard the ship) we had to walk BACK! So, thank the Lord for Hydrocodone and Soma. Between the two I made it through the night.

So, wrapping up today. Tonight begins Rosh Hoshanna so a lot of the guys have to get home in time for services. People are here from all over the world; Russia, Lithuania, Israel, France and even one or two from Texas. :-) So, this will be the last report on this conference. Nothing technical. You'll have to get that from FICO since everything is copyrighted into their vault of knowledge.

SDG

jco

Day One - FICO Decision Management Tools User Group

Greetings:

First day started at 13:00 but I couldn't get through traffic and arrived at 15:00. I went to the Decision Support clinic headed by Don Grice and Maarten Van Lier that started at 13:00 or so and I was so far behind that I'll have to catch up later.

The hotel is nice but the 17:30 cheese-and-wine was awesome. Lots of brisket, pasta bar, chips-and-dips, beer/wine/etc. bars made it nice. But with my bad back I could only stand up for so long. Lots of old friends there: Tom Travis, Vlad Silverman, Carole Ann Berlioz-Matignon, Carlos Seranno-Morales (Europeans are really big on double last names). Willie Hall and Mark Eastwood are supposed to arrive tomorrow.

The conference itself seems focused on business users rather than geeks. (So what am I doing here?) Several good talks lined up for today including some on Blaze Advisor and business optimization tools. My talk will be on optimizing Blaze Advisor at 16:00 today and then FICO has a river-boat tour and supper planned. I'm not sure if the PPTs or talks will be available to the general public but if they are I'll let you know. Maarten's talk last night was pretty good so I hope that they do release them to the great, unwashed masses. :-)

SDG

jco

MIND Over Matter: If You Don't Mind Then It Doesn't Matter

Greetings:

If you don't already subscribe to the Mind magazine, may I suggest that you consider it. Drop by your local magazine store or book store and take a look at what is on the shelf and then save a few coins by subscribing to the magazine on an annual basis. Why? OK, here's a couple of thoughts that I got from one of the more recent issues:

Do you remember the last (or next to last) session of M.A.S.H. on TV? It seems that there were some villagers trying to hide from some enemy soldiers and, if caught, all would be killed. One of the young mothers had a baby with her and the baby, as they will do from time to time, was scared and began to cry. The rest of the villagers kept telling her to be quiet or they all would die. The mother ended up suffocating the baby in her attempt to keep it quiet. Questions: Was she right to kill her child to keep the other villagers from being found out and not only killed but probably tortured as well? What did this have to do with MIND magazine?

It seems that whenever the mind is presented with a conundrum such as this that certain portions of the brain are activated. In younger minds, they are, basically, stored in one location. In older minds, the job is distributed out to more than one part of the brain. What I think is happening is that older minds have to consider more than one answer and that the outcomes are different depending on which solution is implemented and when it is done and how it is done. This comes all the way back around to rulebased systems: It's the Senior KE, the Senior Knowledge Engineer, the Rule Architect that will make a huge difference in the overall outcome.

Why? Because that Senior KE has seen the pitfalls of what happens when certain logical paths are followed and has experienced the outcomes of failures in the past. What was it that George Satayana said? "Those who will not learn from history are forced to repeat it." (Often attributed to Ben Franklin but supposedly he got it from George...) We learn from our mistakes. The more intelligent ones learn from the mistakes of others. It seems that some never learn but have keep making the same mistake over and over and over. My favorite is the company that hears about off-shoring work at really, really cheap rates. What they don't hear about are all of the problems connected with different cultures, different languages, different work habits, the advantage of face-to-fact meetings, etc.

The other one is when a company refuses to pay the higher rates of a senior consultant and hires a programmer who is really, really good at Java or C/C++ and assigns them to do the work that truly needs a Senior KE to direct the effort. the project goes down the porcelain receptacle reserved for such sludge and management brazenly decides that a rulebased solution was not needed for a project such as this. No one really loses their jobs because the smart ones bailed out after the first few months and went on the bigger and better things. Those stuck with the smelly thing can then blame those who started it. Those who started it blame those who followed it with not carrying out their particular vision and, of course, it went bad.

Now, wasn't that fun? And I'm sure that most of the senior guys have been on the Project From Hell, Death March, etc. By whatever name, it wasn't much fun if you were on the final march and, as consultants called in to save such a fiasco, it's usually impossible with what is left of the budget. But, once in a while, it is possible and what remains of management is so desperate that they actually let you do the right thing. And you get to be the hero. One or two of those go a long, long way toward making up for all of the fiascos foisted upon you in the past.

So, what is the lesson to be learned here? Take care and be wary of what you accept when management is willing to pay a higher rate plus expenses. There HAS to be a catch somewhere and I'll bet it's because some ninny has already messed up the playground.

More and more good news on ORF 2009

Greetings:

First, some GREAT news! We have re-arranged the Agenda so that we could accommodate a "Thursday Afternoon Think Tank on Needful Things." This would be a round table discussion (with some attendee participation) on various subjects that concern the more technical aspects of rulebased systems rather than their direct application to problems per se. Those who have agreed to be on the panel are Dr. Charles Forgy, Mark Proctor, Gary Riley, Dr. Jacob Feldman, Dr. Richard Hicks, Carole Ann Berlioz-Matignon, Carlos Seranno-Morales, Jason Morris and Paul Vincent. For example, a few of the topics will (might) be Complex Event Processing, Benchmarks in This Century, Patterns in Rulebased Systems, Finite State Machines as a Special Type of Rules, etc. This is focused more on the "hard core" developers and "thought leaders" in the rulebase field. However, ALL attendees and/or speakers are invited to attend and be part of the direction(s) that rulebased systems might take for the next decade.

Another change is that there will be another Drools Boot Camp (like last year) headed up by Mark Proctor. This will be co-located with October Rules Fest in The Adolphus hotel and will be all day SUNDAY and MONDY morning. Since Mark and Edson will be there anyway this was a great opportunity for another in a great series of DBCs that Mark has done in the past. The DBC will be absolutely free for ORF attendees but there will be a charge if you are attending DBC only so that we can pay for the room, coffee, etc.

Finally, the conference proper will start on MONDAY AFTERNOON rather than Tuesday morning. The lead-off speaker will be Lawrence Terrill on a really good explanation of the Rete Algorithm - one of the best that I have ever seen.

I've been reading through some of the early submissions of the White Papers for October Rules Fest and they are really outstanding! Dr. Charles Forgy's paper on parallel rulebased systems (need and solutions) is fantastic. As is that of Gary Riley on optimizing performance in CLIPS. Andrew Waterman submitted one on games and is looking for folks to submit more add-ons. Dr. Richard Hicks has submitted one on Validation and Verification that everyone should read. (He is giving each attendee a free copy of the game.) Dr. Daniel Levine's paper explores the inner-dimension of the brain itself, its own self-imposed rules and problems with "rational thought process." Remember, all of these will be available at no charge only to attendees at ORF 2009.

Anyway, you need to sign up (if you haven't already done so) and be sure to reserve a hotel room. We still have a few places left.

SDG

jco

http://www.OctoberRulesFest.org

He Who Knows...

Greetings:

Nothing much to do with rules specifically but more with things in general. I ran across an old by-line that I used to use a long time ago:

"He who knows not and knows not that he knows not is a fool.

Shun him.

He who knows not and knows that he knows not is a child.

Teach him.

He who knows and knows not that he knows is asleep.

Wake him.

He who knows and knows that he knows is a genius.

Follow him."

This was supposedly an old Hindu proverb but who knows? Maybe Ben Franklin made it up but it sounds too psychological to be Ben. On large projects I've met all kinds distributed in a natural distribution pattern. Maybe one or two at the top and one or two at the top. Maybe. But lots in between which is pretty much a compliment to programmers everywhere.

Here's the problem: What to do with the first one? Management picked this guy and he/she is a "valuable" member of the development team. I had to point this out to a company once after a two-week gig to help them get started with rules. I told ONLY the Senior Director for the project after he pointedly asked about each person. But his pride-and-joy manger had picked that individual to move from being a contractor to leading the rule development team. The guy had been doing C/C++ stuff for two years and had made very little progress toward a real rulebased system. But, in his defense, his GUI stuff looked really cool.

Truly, he didn't know rulebase development and he didn't know that he didn't know. Their regular employee on the team (who would have to work for this ninny) was more of the second kind; eager to learn anything that you could teach him. I'm not sure where the manager fit on the chart but she certainly was convinced that she had made her decision and she was going to back it up 100%. Also, unfortunately for me, she was the one who hired me and I had to tell her the same thing. They were ecstatic about the analysis that I had done until 2:00 the afternoon that I was leaving. By 2:15 all bets were off. So, I didn't get called back for the traditional "sanity check" because the bare, naked truth was out of the bag and on the table. Now they had to justify keeping these plans and that meant that they did NOT want anything to do with facts.

As one of my old managers used to tell me, "James, you have great technical skills. It's your 'soft skills" that need work. You don't know how to tell anyone diplomatically that what they are doing is trash and that their development personnel need five years training just to get up to the zero level. Sometimes you can't tell someone the truth straight out - you have to sugar coat it so that it tastes better." He was right, of course. Maybe one day I'll find a home where I can just DO things and not have to worry about feelings. So, that's my tale of adventures with the upper class of management. I don't belong there. Hopefully you can learn from that and be nice to nit-wits and dweebs. After all, if God didn't love them he wouldn't have made so many of them. :-)

SDG

jco

Benchmarks 2009 to follow ORF 2009

Greetings:

Just a quick follow-up on all of the earlier posts about Benchmarks. It looks like I'll be doing them AFTER the October Rules Fest rather than before. Too much stuff has piled up on my plate. I do plan on doing CLIPS and Jess on WaltzDB-200 since the code is already written for those. And I've run most of the OPSJ and TECH stuff already. But the multi-platform and optimization as well as the code for Advisor, JRules, Drools and others will have to wait until after ORF 2009 is over. If anyone has a suggestion, or wants to write the code for the last three, I would appreciate it.

It's beginning to look as though the Annual Benchmark Cook-Off will have to be done the last two months of each year since that seems to be when most companies begin to shut down and then crank up again in January.

SDG

jco

FICO Forum: Decision Management Tools User Group

Greetings:

The FICO Forum: Decision Management Tool User Group will meet on September 16 - September 18 at the Hotel Allegro in Chicago, IL. FICO has kindly asked me to chat with the FICO Blaze Advisor users about optimizing rules, benchmarks and things of that nature. My talk will be on September 17th so if you happen to be in Chicago at the time be sure to come by the conference. There is a lot more than my talk, of course, and this can be found at

http://www.online-reg.com/FICO/2009/dmtools/

http://www.online-reg.com/FICO/2009/dmtools/speakers.lasso

if you would like more information about the conference itself or the other speakers. Like most other conferences, I would like to be able to attend all four tracks but I can only attend one session at a time - so in addition to having to attend my own presentation (one that I already know quite well) I'll miss out on 3/4 of the great stuff, including the half-day tutorials on Wednesday. All-in-all, it should be a really great conference.

SDG

jco

October Rules Fest 2009 Books available

Greetings:

More conference news:

More good news for attendees: Dr. Leon Kappleman, a widely recognized authority on Enterprise Architcture, has made it possible for attendees to order his new book on "The SIM Guide to Enterprise Architecture" that normally retails for $59.95 and get a 40% discount. You can get better preliminary details at http://www.routledge.com/books/The-SIM-Guide-to-Enterprise-Architecture-isbn9781439811139 where you can some more details about the book itself. [Added note 10 Aug] Here is a list of contributors to the book: http://courses.unt.edu/kappelman/aboutwork/Book%20Slide%201.pdf

So: Register for the conference THEN register at the hotel for the conference rate. If you have ANY problems (registering OR getting the special ORF rate at the hotel) PLEASE let either myself or Chelanie know about it. See you in October!

Finally: If anyone else has a book that they would like to offer discounts to ORF conference attendees, please let us know and we will start a listing of all of them. But, right now, this is the only one. Enjoy...

SDG

jco

Benchmarking at ORF 2009, Part 7

Greetings:

Conference News:

Dr. Forgy has just about finished up his new algorithm - there's always some last minute thing that needs to be done. While testing his new TECH algorithm on my variousl platforms I have found it to be about an order of magnitude faster then Rete 2 or Rete III on both my MacIntosh, Core2Duo Unix environment and the Windows 64-bit Dell i7. On the i7 (that is effectively 8 CPUs) it scales nicely and provides even faster performance. I can't wait to get my 8-core Mac Pro (the Nehalem 2x4 CPU) and see how it runs there. Dr. Forgy has agreed to discuss the new algorithm after hours during Pub Nights in the Walt Garrison restaurant and bar that is located in The Adolphus Hotel.

OH! You wanted numbers? OK, the only comparison that I have right now is OPSJ versus TECH but here is what I have so far - lots more to come later and I'll publish it all at ORF. We had to use a new benchmark because TECH runs so blooming fast that it's hard to compare the difference in 1.2 seconds and 0.57 seconds as anything meaningful when running WaltzDB-16. OPSJ runs that one 2.7 seconds on the Core2Duo Mac and in 0.433 seconds on the Dell i7. TECH is not really measurable.

WaltzDB-200 (New Benchmark for 2009) - in seconds

Core2Duo Mac, Leopard, 3GB RAM:

OPSJ: 46.467

TECH: 4.549

Dell i7 64-bit Vista, 6GB RAM

OPSJ: 17.466

TECH: 2.362

So, that's pretty much a 10:1 (or thereabouts) speed improvement firing 246,233 rules. Remember, OPSJ is the underlying engine in Java that incorporates Rete 2 / Rete III, the fastest Java rulebase on the planet Earth. Until now, that is. Also, remember that I have NOT finished the full comparisons checkout and double-checked everything to be sure that they are the same and firing the same rules and doing everything. But, so far, it looks pretty fantastic. As soon as I get a chance I'll do the other BRMS and rulebased systems including Drools, Blaze Advisor, Jess, CLIPS and (possibly) JRules.

Depending on when his patents are approved and finalized, Dr. Forgy will be happy to talk with you at ORF about this ground-breaking technology.

SDG

jco

Manny and James

Greetings:

I could start this blog with a cute saying, but the essence of the blog is more serious so I shan't. Manny Gandarillas posted an article http://www.BRCommunity.com/a2009/b487.html on BR Forum that was a tongue-in-cheek view of the different views of a rulebase as experienced by different personnel on any rulebased program. Subsequently, James Taylor posted a response on BR Forum at http://www.BRCommunity.com/a2009/b487.html where he took Manny to task for some of the things that he said. So, just to add another view, permit me just a quick view of both articles and an even briefer rejoinder.

First, neither Haley Expert Rules nor Mind Box are considered "leaders" in the world of BRMS. Way back in 2004, with some agreement from both ILOG and FICO, I wrote a brief definition for a BRMS at http://www.infoworld.com/t/business/business-rules-management-systems-548 that was pretty much as brief as one could be and still say anything about it in a 400-word side bar. In that description I did say that, for the most part, the business analysts should be writing the code BUT with the guidance of a full-blown knowledge engineer. Since that time I have seen situations where the BAs did not want any help whatsoever from the IT guys except to construct the architecture for the Java classes, database, web screens, whatever. In other situations, the BAs wanted no part of writing the rules except for writing them into the rules document and letting the IT department implement them in what ever fashion they deemed fit so long as it passed the final testing for both validation, verification and speed.

Let's face it: The business guys have the money but have not the technical expertise to use it properly if left alone. The IT guys know how to implement things but the real rules of business are usually beyond their job skills. The rules help implement the "what" and the "why" of what happens in the coropration, not the "how". The "how" is normally left up to IT. BUT, at what point do we draw the line between the BAs and the IT guys? This last bit is what can cause a BRMS to fail if one party or the other cannot resolve their power struggles and work in harmony with the other. Business is, after all, the customer of the IT department. And if business wants things to work correctly, they need to be friends with the geeks.

I do think that James is spot-on about the business personnel not needing to care about forward or backward chaining, sequential or Rete or Dete or whatever - it's the geeks who will have to make this blooming thing perform properly and scale to enterprise proportions who will be, should be, concerned about those things. And the BAs will HAVE to work with the IT guys to accept that some things will work and some things won't work.

However, let's get one thing perfectly clear: When the BAs take over the logic of the rules then THEY are the ones responsible for the testing and verification of the results, not the IT guys. To me, this has and should be one of the great things about a real BRMS; the BAs take responsibility for what actually happens. Normally, this kind of arrangement just provides more and more work for the IT guys who have to design more enterprise architecture to handle all of the various rulebased system (BRMS) that will begin to crop up once the word gets out that the rules CAN be changed, tested, verified and put into productions in days (three to five) rather than months. BUT, and this is equally important, the design of a proper BRMS is not an easy task and it DOES require the expertise of someone who has done this several times for many different companies and knows where the land mines are located.

Bottom line: Even with the shameless plug for BR Forum and his book, James is right on several of the points. However, Manny did bring up some bullet points that gave us a focus on our discussion. Personally, while I might not agree with all of the contained thoughts in Manny's chart, it was unique and should be shared for further consideration by most vendors. (OK, it's a twist on the old view of an elephant joke.) Now, for my shameless plug: If you guys really, really ant to get into the technical semantics of BRMS, come to October Rules Fest in Dallas, http://www.OctoberRulesFest.org and see what the CIOs and technical architects think about the BRMS hype.

BTW, what is the best way to eat that infamous elephant? (A: One bite at a time.) The same applies to a BRMS or rulebase or any other unfamiliar territory. Take it slow, make something small work first with the ultimate goal to incorporate all of the corporate knowledge into the rules. Not today, not this year. But maybe in five years. :-)

SDG

jco