AMORD: A Deductive Procedure System.
Abstract
AMORD is a system for writing problem solvers. It encourages a style of expression in which the logical relationships of the knowledge and control structure of the problem solver are made explicit. A minimal set of mechanisms is supplied by AMORD so that most of the knowledge that must be formalized and the decisions that must be made in constructing a problem solving program must, to a large degree, be made explicit in AMORD. This makes AMORD a vehicle for expressing the structure of problem solvers. Once the problem solving structure has been formalized, the task of transferral to programs in programming languages is straightforward. The important aspect of AMORD is the discipline of explicit control it enforces, rather than the specific language or syntax in which the control knowledge is expressed. The basic mechanism of AMORD is the pattern-directed invocation of a set of rules operating on an indexed data base of assertions. We have implemented an interpreter for the rule-based system, AMORD, based on a non-chronological control structure and a system of automatically maintained data-dependencies. The purpose of this paper is to serve as a reference manual and as an implementation tutorial. It illustrates: (1) The discipline of explicit control and dependencies; (2) How to use AMORD; and (3) One way to implement the mechanisms provided by AMORD.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 1978
- Accession Number
- ADA078417
Entities
People
- Charles Rich
- Gerald Jay Sussman
- Guy L. Steele Jr.
- Johan De Kleer
- Jon Doyle
Organizations
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology