V6M@PSUVM.BITNET (10/23/86)
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I'D APPRECIATE ANY COMMENTS THE GROUP HAS ON THE AI BASED PACKAGE <GURU>.
VINCENT MARCHIONNI
V6M AT PSUVM VIA BITNET
OR
ACIG
1 VALLEY FORGE PLAZA
VALLEY FORGE PA 19487
THANKS VINCEdrv@mtx5w.UUCP (10/29/86)
> I'D APPRECIATE ANY COMMENTS THE GROUP HAS ON THE AI BASED PACKAGE <GURU>. > I had an evaluation copy of Guru here about a month ago. I found it an interesting package with a lot of nice features. I decided not to use it for a lot of reasons specific to my application but I'll try not to let them get in the way of my evaluation. First, a short description of what Guru has. In addition to a language and a set of features for creating rule-based systems, Guru contains a text editor, a spreadsheet, a communications package, a graphics package, a relational data base package, a Unix shell-like procedural language, a menu and user prompt facility and probably a few other things I've forgotten. The rule-based system, editor and spreadsheet are the parts I looked into most so my comments will be limited to those. The editor and spreadsheet are not what you would call state-of-the-art. There are standalone packages available for most PCs that are as nice or nicer than Guru's in my opinion. While the menu interface to Guru and the graphics package make nice use of the PC graphics, neither the editor nor the spreadsheet use any graphics. It appears that the Guru folks purchased these packages from outside and integrated them in to their total system. That opinion is based on nothing other than the rather different appearance these modules have from each other. The novel and nice feature that Guru has that prompted my to look into it in the first place is the ability to reference different portions of Guru from others. For example, within a spreadsheet you can reference a rule-based system (which can access the data in the spreadsheet) and fill in cells with results from a rule- based execution (called a consultation in Guru). Similarly, within the editor you can access the data base for results to be added to the text, access the data base from within a rule based system, etc. I spent a fair amount of time with the spreadsheet accessing rules in a rule-based system. While I had a few difficulties due to the way the rules address spreadsheet cells, I found the procedure to work fairly well. One thing that turned me off from Guru, in addition to the mismatch with my intended application, was the price tag. $3000 seemed a bit steep for me. But if you need most or many of the different features rather than just a couple it might be a better investment instead of buying separate components. And if you need to have the integration between components such as spreadsheet and rule-based system, I know of no other tool that does that. Then the price might be well worth it. Good luck and I hope this helps. Dennis R. Vogel AT&T Information Systems Middletown, NJ (201) 957-4951