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From: laurence@ncb.gov.sg (Laurence Liew)
Subject: Re: CLIPS vs KAPPA
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Date: Wed, 23 Nov 1994 15:45:54 GMT
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Mark Korenkiewicz (mkoren@trepang.mitre.org) wrote:
: Anyone care have any infromation comapring CLIPS to KAPPA from Intellicorp? We
: are looking at KAPPA but its very pricey. If we could get similar capability
: out of CLIPS, it might be the way to go. Especially since we can get it for
: free. Any information is appreciated, thanks.


I have used both clips and kappa during my postgrad days.

Kappa provides a total development environment to develop an expert system
and hence its price. Its graphical browers allows the developer to visually
see the knowledge to be modelled which is very useful for complex problems.
It has a built in UI tool for quick prototyping ( and even final delivey ).
And from personal experience, the UI portion takes up more than 60% of the development time. Hence you might want to consider Kappa especially if you want a quick working prototye of your expert system. Kappa also uses C syntax like programming language and would be easy for someone with C/Fortran background to learn
and implement quickly. Kappa has both backward and forward chaining.

CLIPS V6.0 implements forward chaining using the Rete algorithm. ( I think backwward chaining is also possible in V6.0 ). It does not boast an integrated 
development environment however. There is also no visual brower to see the
relationship among the objects ( yes V6.0 is OO ). CLIPS syntax is lisp like
so unless you are adept at (+ 8 9 ) syntax, it offers a steeper learning
curve. There is a version of CLIPS wxclips I think that offers an UI builder
( for Windows 3.1, OpenWin etc .. ) check out the FAQ.

Most of the 'expert or ai intelligence' portion of the application that
you need can be found in both CLIPS and KAPPA. Its a matter of weighting
the cost ( of KAPPA ) and time ( easy developemnt using KAPPA). CLIPS will
allow you to do most if not all of what KAPPA can do.

Of course with KAPPA you have support from the vendor while for CLIPS well
no support directly, but this newsgroup does offers quite a bit of help.

Good Luck!

laurence

ps. check out FAQ. There are interesting extensions to CLIPS like FuzzyClips
DynaClips ... and all are free ;-).
