ABSTRACT
Many knowledge-based systems and learning systems are built on a production-system software technology. The issue of efficiency of this technology has long been of major concern, since, a priori, matching (say) 10,000 productions against a working memory of 1000 elements 100 times a sec seems computationally intractable. Much progress has in fact been made in the underlying algorithmic and software efficiency, starting with the invention of the Rete Net technology (Forgy, 1982). However, the concerns remain critical. We would like not 10K, but WOK or even IM productions, and we would like 10K elements in working memory and the cycle time to be 1000 times a sec. However, typical productions systems are only a few hundred productions, a few are in the low thousands.
