A terse refutation of the 10 top reasons given for not using a business rules approach, not necessarily good reasons of course.

The usual suspects include such classics as "it didn't run fast on our 486 66Mz computer in 1988" and "our rules are too complex for a rule engine [ god help'em ]" and eight other great excuses for procedural determinism.

Actually, it's not ten reasons, only nine - see item #6.

Updated Oct 6 2008: fixed bad links and added more links

Barbara Von Halle is a true pioneer in the discipline of business rules. She started with a series of important articles about business rules in Database Programming and Design magazine in the early 1990s and then just kept going. She founded Knowledge Partners International in 1996.

Added Jan 20 2009: new section for Business Rules of Thumb
Updated Sept 16 2008: new links

The Grand Daddy of business rules sites is Business Rule Community, run by Ron Ross. They make you sign up in order to see most of their articles, but it's well worth the time to sign up. The content is excellent. They send you a newsletter about once a month - no big mailing lists, no spamming.

One of the hot areas for cross-fertilization these days is business rules and service oriented architecture.

Business rule and object technology veteran Ian Graham has written an excellent book on the subject titled Business Rules Management and Service Oriented Architecture: A Pattern Language.