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From: beng@microsoft.UUCP (Ben GOETTER)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: InferenceEngine Class
Message-ID: <72465@microsoft.UUCP>
Date: 20 May 91 21:57:34 GMT
References: <1991May13.220828.8453@ibmpcug.co.uk>
Reply-To: beng@microsoft.UUCP (Ben Goetter)
Organization: Microsoft, Network Development, UI
Lines: 30

In article <1991May13.220828.8453@ibmpcug.co.uk> immo@ibmpcug.co.uk (Immo Huneke) writes:
| A long long time ago, someone on this conference posted a query about an
| InferenceEngine class in C++. I myself posted a similar query on behalf of
| colleagues who were writing an expert system simulation (I kid you not).
| 
| Well, I have come across the very thing, in an excellent book called
| "C/C++ for Expert Systems" by David Hu (MIS: Press, I think).

It is indeed on MIS Press.  And it certainly does contain the C++ source to an
inference engine.  Beyond that source, however, I would hesitate to recommend
this book, unless I was compiling a list titled "10 Worst Software Paperbacks
of 1990."  Only rarely do I encounter so poorly edited a book.  Clumsily
written, and bloated with random information, it contains poor summaries of
popular O-O languages, a poor summary of Lisp, a dreadful description of
expert systems methodology, and some perfectly unnecessary emulations of Lisp
primitives in C.  This book doesn't know what it wants to do.  Is it an
introduction to OO? a primer on expert systems techniques? or perhaps a
guidebook for xlating Lisp programs into C?

I suspect that, given a good editor and a publishing house that can do layout,
Dr. Hu might write some useful books.  But his books on MIS Press read as if
the house had solicited drafts on a number of trendy topics, then rushed them
into publication without so much as a spelling check.

If you have great patience, then wade into C/C++ FOR EXPERT SYSTEMS and try
to glean some value.  Good luck.

--
Ben Goetter, microsoft!beng      * I do not represent Microsoft Corporation. *