Maintainability techniques in developing large expert systems

Author

Prerau, David S. ; Gunderson, Alan S. ; Reinke, Robert E. ; Adler, Mark R.

Author_Institution

GTE Lab. Inc., Waltham, MA, USA

Volume

5

Issue

3

fYear

1990

fDate

6/1/1990 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

71

Lastpage

80

Abstract

The production of understandable and maintainable expert systems using the current generation of multiparadigm development tools is addressed. This issue is discussed in the context of COMPASS, a large and complex expert system that helps maintain an electronic telephone exchange. As part of the work on COMPASS, several techniques to aid maintainability were developed and successfully implemented. Some of the techniques were new, others were derived from traditional software engineering but modified to fit the rapid prototyping approach of expert system building. An overview of the COMPASS project is presented, software problem areas are identified, solutions adopted in the final system are described and how these solutions can be generalized is discussed.<>

Keywords

expert systems; knowledge engineering; software engineering; telecommunications computing; telephone exchanges; COMPASS project; complex expert system; electronic telephone exchange; expert system building; large expert systems; maintainability; maintainable expert systems; multiparadigm development tools; rapid prototyping approach; software problem areas; traditional software engineering; Artificial intelligence; Expert systems; Laboratories; Production systems; Programming; Software engineering; Software maintenance; Software prototyping; Switches; Telephony;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

IEEE Expert

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0885-9000

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/64.54675

Filename

54675