How to Build a Business Rules Engine

It is very important that building a business rules engine not make it easier to

create these problems. If a new business rule calculates some information that needs

to be stored in a new database column, then a new column should be created for this

data. Admittedly, this will not prevent users from trying to use existing columns to

store something different. However, as we shall see, it is possible to a large extent to

design a rules engine that can detect the reuse of columns for different business rules

and prevent it from happening. Perhaps more important is implementing a design

that encourages the development of a mindset among users of the application that

database columns are specific items of information. Everything should be done to dis- ...