Requirements

The primary goal to achieve is to overcome the limitations of RDBMS mentioned in Section 2.2. These are two classes of problems: C1 and C2.

In general, solving these problems can be done by introducing intensional knowledge, a set of rules, which can be applied to extensional knowledge already gathered in the database. Furthermore, there is a need for an engine, which will interpret the rules and provide the inference. Following this guidelines the requirements can be stated:

1. keep intensional knowledge in a well known, well tested, and efficient way,
2. allow declarative programming, so the inference will be described by logical rules,
3. allow controlling of the inference process, incorporating procedural programming elements with respect of the previous statements,
4. minimize use of additional programming languages and paradigms: be as close to the foundations of RDBMS as possible, so database designers and programmers can adjust easily.