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Simple-to-setup Expert System?

Posted by michael on from the ask-the-computer dept.

Mark Hood writes: "I've been asked to provide a simple trouble-shooting guide for new engineers to follow when presented with an unfamiliar fault or bug report. Mainly this can be done with static web pages and a series of 'yes/no' questions... (Is it plugged in? Is it switched on? etc) but a nice facility would be to allow engineers to update it with what they did to fix faults / gather information. The question is: does anything simple like this already exist? Web searches turn up loads of 'Expert System Shells' or 'Programming Systems', but I was hoping for something that wouldn't require months of dedicated time (this is not my job, I'm just helping out :). Anyone done this at their workplace? Any hints? Or should I knuckle down and write a few CGI scripts for adding data to a web page?"

5 of 28 comments (clear)

  1. Old game "animal" by Ramses0 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Does anyone remember the old game "animal"? While not exactly what you're looking for, you might be able to repurpose it.

    Here is a log of some output:
    I think I'll try a guess now...
    Is your animal a Elephant? no

    I give up! You win! What was your animal? Dog

    I need a yes-or-no question so I can later
    tell the difference between a Elephant and a Dog.
    Does it have a trunk?
    what would be the answer be for a Dog? no
    what would be the answer be for a Elephant? yes

    I now know 3 animals!

    Want to play again? yes

    Think of an animal.
    Press [Enter] or [Return] to continue...

    Does it have a long neck? no
    Does it have a trunk? no

    I think I'll try a guess now...
    Is your animal a Dog? no

    I give up! You win! What was your animal? Monkey

    I need a yes-or-no question so I can later
    tell the difference between a Dog and a Monkey.
    Is it a biped?
    what would be the answer be for a Monkey? yes
    what would be the answer be for a Dog? no

    I now know 4 animals!

    Want to play again?

    $ apt-cache show animals

  2. Re:CLIPS by Mark+Hood · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Good advice, but I did check the newsgroup FAQs before posting...

    CLIPS looks like a wonderful system, but as I stated in the original submission, I don't want to program an expert system, I just want to use it :)

    Something like the 'animals' program suggested below is probably ideal... if a little simplistic.

    --
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  3. Re:CLIPS by Masem · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I've used CLIPS myself to set up an expert system, and yes, it's definitely a possible tool. However, as the author's indicated, it's not a ready-to-go tool whereby you simply add in your facts and let it run; in addition, (though in later versions, you can), it's not easy to set up dynamic ruleset changes as the author necessitated; that is, if the engineer got to the end of the question stream , and had to make their own decision on how to fix it, then someone would have to add another rule to handle the fact of what the engineer did to do so.

    Now, there might be a program in the CLIPS language out there that might already do this, but OTTOMH, I don't know of one.

    --
    "Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
    "I can see my house from here!" - ST:
  4. Wiki. by ntr0py · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Have you considered a Wiki system? phpwiki has been working really well for our office for a while now.

  5. Re:Case Based Reasoning by bvankuik · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I just read the question, your post and the previous post. Not limited by any knowledge I'd say you both are crazy. :)

    If the one asking the question would set up a wiki-web and slowly added q&a's, then what would be non-trivial about this? The cataloguing involved?

    Bart