Expert Systems and UNIX.

Expert systems and, generally, knowledge based software, constitute a new field of applications software engineering that, to a considerable degree, was conceived and developed under UNIX. Arguably, UNIX can also be considered the optimal environment for such work. The present state of the art is partly founded in AI research at mostly American universities, and partly on European ideas about 'logical programming'. Most of the important language and tool implementations in both areas were done under UNIX. Moreover, the newer ideas in software engineering, especially those about formal specification and rapid prototyping, are intricately connected with these techniques. And it is well known that the modern software technology is to a good part a 'UNIX technology'.