On Self-Validating Rule Bases

In this paper, we analyze a recent trend in software engineering (SE), test driven development, and discuss how it can be adapted to define self validating rule bases. We argue that test cases can be used to specify the semantics of rules, and that the presence of these test cases safeguards the life cycle of rules. We introduce an abstract conceptual framework, in the tradition of Tarski, that allows us to cover a wide range of adequate logics for rule-based representation. We investigate how the concept of test coverage can be adapted to quantify the quality of test cases. We discuss the implementation of these ideas, which includes a discussion on how Semantic Web rule languages can be extended to serialize self validating sets of rules.