An Assessment of Tools for Building Large Knowledge-Based Systems

A number of tools that support the development, execution, and maintenance of knowledge-based systems are marketed commercially Many of these tools, however, are designed for applications that can be executed on personal computers and are not suitable for building large knowledge-based systems The market for knowledge engineering tools designed for applications that require the computational power of a Lisp machine or an engineering workstation is dominated by a few vendors This article is an assessment of the current state of tools used to build large knowledge-based systems This assessment is based on the collective strengths and weaknesses of several tools that have been evaluated In addition, an estimate is made of the features that will be required in the next generation of tools William Mettrey