How to Build a Business Rules Engine

professional lives reverse-engineering program code to “see what it does.” Program

logic cannot be related to other metadata, so there is no way in which its manage-

ment can be systematized. Getting answers to questions such as “What edit valida-

tions do we have on this screen?” or “How does this number get calculated?” require

programmer intervention, to review and parse the program code. Even then, the

answers the programmers provide can be less than complete or reliable, or even under-

standable. The information is typically never documented. Thus, if the same ques-

tion is asked again, the whole process has to be repeated. It is true that from time to

time commercial products appear that claim to parse program logic to reveal busi-

ness rules, ...