From: ted.dunning@gmail.com   
      
   On Nov 4, 11:35 pm, Paolo  wrote:   
   > ... building billing systems?   
   > I do not have any knowledge on ai but after reading some paper on the   
   > internet I started to think that expert systems (for example CLIPS)   
   > could be an interesting solution for building billing systems.   
   > Imagine to have many options/data that should drive billing, imagine   
   > that the pricing schema of the products could change often (say   
   > monthly), it could be a pain to mantain and keep updated a system   
   > built with procedural languages.   
   > I would like to have your suggestions before I start to study expert   
   > systems to figure out if my feeling is correct.   
      
   If your billing system is complex enough to justify an expert system,   
   then you have a much more substantial problem with your business that   
   is better addressed by simplifying the business rather than codifying   
   the complexity in a rule-based system.   
      
   That said, it is fairly common to have fairly simple business logic   
   that is well addressed with simple rules (simple enough to be encoded   
   in a database).  For instance, the rules for applying sales tax can be   
   moderately complex depending on where your company has facilities.   
   Likewise, you shouldn't be charging for a service contract for   
   hardware that somebody hasn't bought.   
      
   Dell's configurator is a good example of such a system.  It has simple   
   configuration rules built in so that you, for example, can't add too   
   much memory to a system, nor can you SCSI disks to a system with only   
   SATA interfaces.   
      
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