On Fri, 9 Apr 2010, phiroc_at_...22... wrote: > is there a way to let users define/modify their own rules in ECLiPSe, in > a language other than Prolog and in, say, Excel or another > business-user-friendly environment? It's not quite clear what you mean by "rules"; but in general the answers probably boil down to possible - yes, easy - no. If you want to build a set of constraints for a fixed class of problems (for instance, mixed integer programming) in Excel and then solve it with ECLiPSe, that should be no problem. Just export your constraints in a file format that's as easy to read as possible, and then write ECLiPSe code to read the file and turn it into constraints. However, if your idea of "rules" includes creating new user-defined constraints and other higher-complexity logic programming tasks, I'm finding it hard to imagine how expressing those in a spreadsheet and then translating to ECLiPSe could possibly be easier than just having your users learn the language. Logic programming in general is not "business-user-friendly" if by that you mean "accessible to persons without the necessary technical skills"; and anyone who CAN learn logic programming will find it easier to operate without the handicap of a spreadsheet intermediate layer. -- Matthew Skala, postdoctoral researcher, Universities of Toronto and Waterloo mskala_at_...203... mskala@...205... mskala@...206...Received on Fri Apr 09 2010 - 15:09:00 CEST
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