A PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE SYSTEM FOR DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS (MODEL MANAGEMENT, FUNCTIONAL PROGRAMMING, OBJECT-ORIENTED PROGRAMMING)

Decision Support Systems (DSS) are computer-aided information processing systems used in support of the decision making process. The objective is to propose a DSS development language, which can be used to describe a DSS that is capable of modeling some aspects of the real world more accurately and conveniently than has been the case traditionally. The goal is to make it easier to design and maintain the models used in the DSS by choosing an appropriate vocabulary for the problem domain. The programming language, FLOO (Functional, Logic, Object-Oriented Language) is a DSS development language that incorporates concepts developed in object-oriented systems such as SMALLTALK, ACTORS, in logic programming systems such as PROLOG, and in functional programming systems such as FP. Two phases of the language are defined: model-formulation phase and object-definition phase. In the model-formulation phase, model specification for the DSS is involved, and function-level programming techniques and data flow concepts are utilized. In the object-definition phase, functional style object oriented programming is applied. The use of function forming operators (FFO) and message forming operators (MFO) enhances the capability of integrating software and supports concurrent processing, which forms a strong core for problem processing and problem solving systems in DSS. Issues will be addressed both from programming language perspectives and from the viewpoint of organizational problem solving.