Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Putting event-driven rules in context in real life


We are often talking about the fact that event processing is done within a context,  but what about event-driven rules in real life (not in computerized systems)?


Earlier this week there was an incident that the engine of one of the cars in the parking lot of our lab was on fire (I did not take a picture of that incident, the picture you see above is just a car on fire I found in the Web).


There was an announcement to all employees to move the cars from a certain potion of the parking lot.


The rule that local administration has is:  When a fire event occurs,  shut down all elevators.  
However the one who composed the rule forgot to put it in context and say: when a fire event occurs in the building, shut down all elevators, and the rule has been activated.   The result was counter-productive, since people ran in the stairs  (we have an 8 story building).    


More context-sensitive rule would be helpful.