A Step out of the Ivory Tower: Experiences with Adapting a Test Case Generation Idea to Business Rules

One author developed a validation technology for rule bases that aims at several validity statements and a refined rule base. Two other authors are experienced developers of rule bases for commercial and administrative applications and engaged in the Business Rule (BR) research community. To ensure the requested performance of BR, they developed a verification tool for BR. To reach this objective completely, one gap needs to be bridged: The application of validation technologies to BR. The application of the validation technology‘s first step, the test case generation, revealed basic insights about the different viewpoints and terminologies of foundation– and logic oriented AI research and application oriented knowledge– and software engineering. The experiences gained during the realization of the test case generation for a BR language are reported. In particular, (1) the trade–offs between logic approaches, commercial needs, and the desired involvement of other (non–AI) software technologies as well as (2) the derived refinements of the theoretical approach are one subject of the present paper.