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The article is devoted to Windows Workflow Foundation ( WF ) and the Microsoft Business Rule Engine (MS BRE), but it is a good introduction to the workings of almost any inference/rule engine.

Updated: Feb 26 2008 

One of the truly essential technologies to enable rule-based systems and the semantic web is debugging rule bases. There are several articles describing the basic components of an RBS development environment and how they can be employed to debug a rule base.

It is interesting that the general view of rule-based systems as "rule-based expert systems" begs the question: is there such a thing as non-rule-based expert systems or rule-based non-expert systems ? I think the answer is yes.

For instance, the KBSC site mentions that the company "deals mostly with rulebased systems in the business world where they are sometimes referred to as Business Rule Management Systems, BRMS". In other words, rule-based non-expert systems, also know as business rules.

Oddly, this may be one of the best definitions of "rule-base system". It's when you do ....

Conventionally, rule-based systems are defined as or are closely associated with expert systems. But the usually ever-reliable Wikipedia mentions them only in the context of expert systems and that only in passing.  THe central definition of expert system is:

 From th RuleML site:

The participants of the RuleML Initiative constitute an open network of individuals and groups from both industry and academia. ... Our main objective is to provide a basis for an integrated rule-markup approach that will be beneficial to all involved and to the rule community at large.