• RefactorASP – Excellent refactoring tool from Developer Express.

Besides the refactor tool, check out the website.  Very nicely built, very responsive user interface.

The NxBRE Application is available at the owner Agile Partner's Website.  It is located in a sub path at http://www.agilepartner.net/oss/nxbre/.  To the left of the page one can download the software package via the download link.  The download is provided along with source control by SourceForge.Net.

There are three primary packages to download.  Click the NxBRE download button and you will find the IE-Console, Miscellaneous (Extra Documentation), and NxBRE Packages available for download.  Personally I'd put each download into one directly.  Unzip each respective file into a respective directly within the single directory the files are placed into.

Once everything was downloaded, unzipped, and placed in their proper order I began opening each project/solution to organize them the way I wanted.  The first Visual Studio Solution I opened is 'RuleEngine' Solution.  This solution has an "Examples" solutions folder with a "SpeedTest" project in it and a "RuleEngine" and "UnitTests" project in the primary root of the solution.  Once these projects are opened do the ole' standard "build without errors" routine.  If you don't have NUnit installed the build will break so make sure to get it downloaded and installed.

One thing that is a pet peeve of mine is to have Visual Studio based unit tests for use against projects.  So with the inclusion of unit tests under the NUnit testing framework included, I started working on converting those to Visual Studio based tests.  These I'll post up in my file share section after I complete it.

For now, with the unit tests needing converted, I'm going to get the project building first.  What I did was remove any links to the NUnit testing framework so the solution could build.  I setup a second project that would store untouched, unedited, NxBRE Solution files.  I renamed the solution file specifcally to RuleEngineU.sln just to make sure that I didn't get confused.

After downloading and installing NUnit I set about making sure the project would build.  I wanted to get it to build to assure that I had a good working model to re-write the unit tests in VS against and also as reference for when I create the actual rules engine that I will be putting into production for the project.

At this point I got everything running, created a second solution copy of NxBRE and started converting the unit tests to Microsoft's Framework.  My progress in altering those will be in a follow up entry, for now, lunch calls out to me!  Grub time.

So I've got my scope better defined after this week on the current rules engine I need to create for the current job I'm working on.  The prospect of developing this rules engine is interesting to me.  In the very near future (next 2-3 business days) I will find out even more specifics about the scope requirements as I begin building, or enhancing the rules engine I decide on.  So far I'm working on the following as a basis, which I might or might not use in the final engine design and implementation.

The base prototype that I am using at this time for the rules engine is the NxBRE.  This engine will act as basis of whatever I end up making, whether it is a completely different engine or the NxBRE engine itself is still undecided.  I'm hoping in the next few days to iron our the usage, the following is what I have to consider.

1. Will the NxBRE engine do what is needed of it.
2. Will the NxBRE engine cost less than a custom solution built by me?  (i.e. will it take longer to build a custom solution myself, or implement this and learn how to use it and extend it?)
3. Will a custom solution be robust enough for future use?
4. Will enough support be available via RuleML and other features of NxBRE to meet the demands that an in house solution would provide?  (i.e. will enough developers be using it to make it a "standard" for usage that is easy to train and understand?)

So with that I've got to test out the NxBRE engine, so the following entry will be a how to doc on how to get this sucker downloaded, installed, and running.  Maybe I'll even have time to setup some samples!

So I got a list of things to do for work and play…  Of course, the line between these is so think one couldn’t tell what is for work and what is for play!

1. Get various rules based engines setup for testing and features list ready for ecision to be made on usage.
2. Get a full Community Server Personal Edition installed, setup, and running for modifications and additions.
3. Get a Windows 2003 Server installation configured.  Figure out what my VMs are setup as.
4. Download Microsoft’s test VMs for testing various scenarios.  Research what else is available for use.

So I have a new assignment at work along with moving from team Häschenhetterzufuhren (A) to team Arrogant Bastards (B).  My purpose in moving is to bring some CAB/SCSF experience building MVP/MVC Application Code to balance the teams.  Right off though I have a major task to acheive, a rules engine for the corporations payroll garnishments.  This is very interesting to me, being I'm of a not so average tilt in political alignment, that I am now trying to simplify and make sense of what boils down to Government regulation.  Egads I say.

The components that I will however focus on, sense the regulations are often nonsensical and often confusing (even to the officials who wrote them) I will trying to make the rules engine as flexible as can be for the hard workers of Labor Ready to meet the demands and still get those checks out to all those hard working people of the company!

With that below are a zillion notes to myself in regards to my initial research and observations on the rules engine I will need to build.

The first thing that came up was iLog's business rules engine software.  This package(s) looks promising but am not sure what kind of funding is to be placed into this part of the software solution.  I will definately research this further to identify where the cost point is.  I also need to figure out how easily the implementation and integration of iLog's software to the existing product build would be.  One thing that looks like a definate positive for this package is there exists a .NET implementation!  Yeeehaaaw!

The C# Source site has some good stuff.  One is a simple rules engine and one (I'm assuming) more complex engine.  Both are open source so I'll be checking those out, but will have to also research the licensing to see if I can use them in a Corporate environment.  The first one linked from this site is the NxBRE, the first .NET Rules Based Engine for open source.  The second one linked from this site is the "SRE" or Simple Rules Engine.  Both look ok, the NxBRE being a little more than the other.  I'll find out in the coming days.

The last two links I got from Google where over at the Code Project website.  I've used this site a dozen or more times for good reference material.  This topic also leaves me with some good starting points.  I don't think either of the linked projects are as thorough as the above described projects.  As always though, any reference is welcome when it comes to developing solutions.  The first link was for an "Event Based Rules Engine" by Darren Pruitt.  The second was "Using a Rules Engine to Seperate Business Rules from the Application" by Jeff Bramlett.

I also found some cool stuff at the website The Server Side.  If anything this site has an interesting and in my IMNSHO (in my not so humble opinion) I think it has a really snazzy layout and graphic design to it.  It seems to work well with the amount of data presented on the screen.  For most sites it would NOT work well, but this site is for geeks and we like our information by the train load!

…and thus, for now, my research ends until later in the day…