Reactive rules on the Web

Abstract

Reactive rules are used for programming rule-based, reactive systems, which have the ability to detect events and respond to them automatically in a timely manner. Such systems are needed on the Web for bridging the gap between the existing, passive Web, where data sources can only be accessed to obtain information, and the dynamic Web, where data sources are enriched with reactive behavior. This paper presents two possible approaches to programming rule-based, reactive systems. They are based on different kinds of reactive rules, namely Event-Condition-Action rules and production rules. Concrete reactive languages of both kinds are used to exemplify these programming paradigms. Finally the similarities and differences between these two paradigms are studied. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.