kk@aiva.ed.ac.uk (Kathleen King) (05/20/88)
I'm trying to find out what folk think of various expert system building tools they have experience with. If there's enough interest I'll post the results to the net. Ta. Do you now or have you ever used any of the following tools? Acquaint (A.K.A 'Daisy') APES Arity Expert System Development Package ART Auto-Intelligence Crystal DUCK ENVISAGE and SAGE ES Environment ESP advisor ESP Frame Engine EST(Expert Systems Toolkit) Experkit ExperOps Expert Controller Expert Ease/Super Expert Expert Edge Exsys Ex-Tran 7 1st Class 1st Class Fusion Flops GEST (Generic Expert System Tool) GOLDWORKS GURU G2 HUMBLE Insight 2+ Intelligence/Compiler KDS 3 KEATS (Knowledge Engineer's Assistant) KEE KES (Knowledge Engineering System) Keystone Knowledge Craft Knowledge Workbench Knowol Leonardo Lisp In-Ate/Micro In-Ate LOOPS M1 MacKIT MicroExpert Muse Nexpert/Nexpert Object Nexus OPS5 OPS83 Personal Consultant Easy Personal Consultant Plus PICON RuleMaster 2 Savoir Super Expert S1 TIMM TOPSI TWAICE VP Expert Wisdom XS Xi Plus XPER XSYS If so I'd greatly appreciate hearing your answers to the following questions. 1) How long did it take to learn? 2) Did you teach yourself or get 'learning support'? 3) Do you still use it? 4) Would you choose it again or something else? 5) What sort of application have you used it for? 6) Have you used it for more than one application? I realise that many PC users who might have these tools do not have access to the net. Second hand information from them is just as valuable. Thanks verrrry much.
noren@dinl.uucp (Charles Noren) (09/13/88)
Dear Kathlenn King,
I'm new to usenet, so I just saw your article posted May 20, 1988
about wanting information about tools. (I hope this reaches you)
I've been working with G2 by Gensym since March-88. While I have
*never* used expert shells before, we did evaluate it against ART,
KEE, and Savoir. We choose G2 because:
1. We were not strong LISPers;
2. G2 seemed easy to learn;
3. G2 provided good graphics;
4. Gensym seemed to tailor G2 towards control of real-time devices.
G2 has lived up to our expectations. I took the 1 week G2 course in
Cambridge MA and found it easy to learn. I took the course in Jan-88
and it was not until March-88 when I first used it. I had to brush up
a little on G2, but the documentation and thier examples helped quite
a bit. G2 is easy to use (which is something since I am a neophyte to
this technology). Its rulebase language has a natural langauge syntax.
G2 uses a mouse driven context sensititive editor to prompt you for
everything in it. I have never felt that the editor got in the way as
I better understood the system.
Our primary application for G2 is network management prototyping for
a research project I'm on (we are using it on a Sun 3 workstation).
G2 works very well for this application.
There are a few things that would be nice if they were added, but I
find that I can work around it quit well. Gensym does not allow
modifications to G2 from its underlying LISP environment as ART or KEE
does (because Gensym is writing "garbageless" code). We do not mind
since all of us in the group are C hackers.
Currently we are waiting for the next release of G2 that will permit
our C device servers to interface with G2. This is due (I am told
by Bob Moore, the president of Gensym) around the end of Sept-88.
I am very pleased with G2 and the support I get from Gensym. I will be
reporting my experiences with G2 at Milcom-88 in San Diego, CA at the
end of Oct-88. We do plan on using G2 for other applications prototyping.
I hope this helps --
Chuck Noren
Martin Marietta I&CS
Denver, CO
(303) 971-7930
(PS. I would like to find out what information you got on the topic).
--
Chuck Noren (303) 971-7930