Incremental and integrated evaluation of rule-based systems

Rule-based systems that are easily testable are required for high reliability applications. However, as a rule base evolves, developers prefer incremental evaluation owing to the high cost of regression testing. For quality reliability improvement, researchers advocate that the evaluation phase be integrated with development: thus, incremented evaluation becomes more important in this context. In this paper, we propose a three-tiered life-cycle model for integrating evaluation in a rule-based system life cycle. We then outline its use to facilitate knowledge acquisition using "goal specification" and its realization in a rule base using "paths." Path-based validation has been will-accepted in the literature as a reliable method for structural testing. However, extracting paths for every rule base modification for its evaluation incurs an enormous effort. In this paper, we identify situations that are important for integrating evaluation into the life-cycle of rule-based systems. We also outline how our approach can facilitate handling these issues.