Don't do it. I am currently working with a Java system called ATG Dynamo. It has a very complete rules-based system for promotions and discounts. It sucks.

Why does it suck? Because accounting for all possible kinds of discounts means you end up building a complex configuration language and a pretty heavy engine for interpreting it. It's way too complex for a non-tech person to comfortably work with, and thus it fails at its goal.

I suggest you write an interface for plugging in short pieces of code (maybe use the Strategy design pattern), and write these rules yourself in clean, well-commented perl. They will be much more efficient, and probably require less time to change if you have a competent perl programmer and a reasonable API.

In reply to Re: Seeking configuration language for rules based system. by perrin
in thread Seeking configuration language for rules based system. by ehdonhon

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.