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From: srt@aerospace.aero.org (Scott TCB Turner)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.shells
Subject: Expert System Shells Speed Comparison
Message-ID: <7422@uklirb.informatik.uni-kl.de>
Date: 19 Dec 90 22:28:22 GMT
Sender: shell@uklirb.informatik.uni-kl.de
Organization: The Aerospace Corporation, El Segundo, CA
Lines: 25
Approved: shell@informatik.uni-kl.de
Posted-Date: Fri Dec 21 09:09:26 GMT 1990
Posted-Date: 19 Dec 90 22:28:22 GMT

I've been studying the performance of various expert system shells
lately, and I thought the results interesting enough to post.  For
each shell I wrote the simplest possible rule that would fire
repeatedly and timed the number of firings per minute.  Obviously,
this is an overly simplistic test.  It would be better to time some
kind of "realistic" set of rules, but I haven't the time or energy to
do that.  This test does, I think, give some ideas about the basic
speed of the rule interpreter.

All the timings were done on a Vaxstation 3100.  The timing for ART-IM
is estimated, since I only had an executable for a PC.  I used the
comparative speeds of CLIPS on the Vaxstation and the PC to estimate
ART-IM's times on a Vaxstation.

Shell			Approx. Rules/Minute
G2				1700
Nexpert				4000
ART-IM				5500
CLIPS			       49000

CLIPS is the obvious big winner.  This despite that fact that
incrementing a counter in CLIPS requires an assert and retract from
the database.

						-- Scott Turner