Closing the Gap Between Modeling to Make Sense and Modeling to Implement Systems

Abstract

We view knowledge acquisition for knowledge‐based systems as a constructive model‐building process. From this view we derive several requirements for knowledge modeling environments. We concentrate on those requirements that arise if one wants to support both modeling to make sense and modeling to implement systems with a single language. For example, among other things, such languages should support multifaceted, bottom‐up construing of observed behavior and they should have operational semantics. We introduce the operational modeling language OMOS, an experimental study that—in a KADS‐like fashion—allows multifaceted model building from a method and a domain point of view, but, unlike KADS conceptual models, results in directly operational systems. Finally, we compare OMOS to other recent developments to highlight differences in the approaches.