Rationale for the Arden Syntax.

The Arden Syntax, a language designed for writing and sharing task-specific knowledge for Medical Logic Modules (MLMs), has been recently accepted as a standard by the ASTM. The syntax is concerned with the critical task of sharing medical knowledge bases across many institutions. Because of the relative lack of agreement on vocabularies and data standards and because of the many other obstacles, the developers of the Arden Syntax took a pragmatic, straightforward approach that has borne fruit in a very short period of time. The syntax provides a vehicle for the health care community to begin sharing, so that we can see what works and what does not work, and we can begin to address the critical obstacles. In designing a language like the Arden Syntax, the authors make many decisions--but the final document gives only the result of these decisions without any explanation. By writing down the rationale behind the design of the syntax, we hope to aid users of the language, implementors of the language, and future designers of new languages.