University of Houston

By simply dragging and dropping the mouse, RuleMaker, the graphical interface for rule-based programming language, presents an easy way for developers to create graphical modules of rules, which relieve them from the traditional burden of dealing with syntax of the programming language. With this thesis, it is demonstrated that by connecting with LRR, a Laboratory for Rapid Rewriting, users not only can get the final result, but also can get partial computation results according to numbers of steps they input, which makes the control of LRR through RuleMaker more flexible. This visualization and flexibility helps the user better understand the structures of the rules and how LRR normalizes rules. According to the evaluation we set up, we got encouraging results for RuleMaker, which suggests that RuleMaker is a good tool for rule-based programming.