Re: Business Rules

On Mar 28, 8:42 am, Lars Tackmann <ltackm..._at_gmail.com> wrote:
> but hopefully I can learn
> how to stay out of the spaghetti mess of application/database logic I
> so often face whenever I
> see such rules implemented in real life.

The "spaghetti mess" epithet was the exact motivaton to employ some proprietory rule-based engine on a project I was involved a decade ago. We used to joke that the guy who maintained the rules for this engine is guraranteed the employment with the company forever. The project indeed was quietly scrapped after the leading developer leaving, and there were several lessons to learn from that failure. Using priopritory or niche technology as project fundation was obvious, but my most vivid impression was the inability of rule engines to do simple things that we take for granted in traditional procedural languages. Rule engines have no loops, no exception handling, no modular code structuring. They have no debugging facility. Therefore, yes, you can have business rules coded as spaghetty, but there are well established facilities to manage this complexity, whereas in rules engine case after you scale above 1000 rules, your project is essentially out of control.

My diatribe doesn't apply to database-as-business-rules-repository, however, this idea currently exists only on paper (C.J. Date book "What Not How: The Business Rules Approach to Application Development"). Received on Fri Mar 28 2008 - 20:12:52 CET