1. A method for generating software components from one or more rule statements expressed in a language, the method comprising: at a computing system that includes a processor, memory, and mass storage device, receiving symbols of a vocabulary of a natural language, the natural language having grammatical rules, and details about each of the symbols; receiving, at the computing system, at least one rule statement expressed using the symbols of the vocabulary of the natural language; at the computing system, parsing the rule statement in accordance with the natural language grammatical rules to generate a language-based structure of the rule statement that identifies the symbols used and their interrelationships with respect to a sentence structure, wherein the parsing reports how each word in the rule statement is categorized into: a) terms defined in the vocabulary, b) names defined in the vocabulary for individual things, c) connecting symbols of function forms defined in the vocabulary, d) key words and phrases, quantifiers, and logical connectives, and e) words that are not recognized; at the computing system, processing the language-based structure of the rule statement corresponding to an expression to generate an expression model; at the computing system, processing the expression model to generate a logical model wherein processing the expression model comprises: a) relating synonymous terms to a single concept; b) relating synonymous forms and related noun forms to a single fact type; c) relating synonymous names to a single instance; d) relating each instance to its corresponding concept; e) determining identifying fact types for concepts; determining generalizations between concepts; and g) reporting logical inconsistencies, if any; at the computing system, processing the logical model to generate a platform-independent implementation model in response to a request for such generation; at the computing system, receiving a specific target platform description; and at the computing system, processing the platform-independent implementation model using the specific target platform description to generate a platform-specific implementation model.
1. A method for generating software components from one or more rule statements expressed in a language, the method comprising: at a computing system that includes a processor, memory, and mass storage device, receiving symbols of a vocabulary of a natural language, the natural language having grammatical rules, and details about each of the symbols; receiving, at the computing system, at least one rule statement expressed using the symbols of the vocabulary of the natural language; at the computing system, parsing the rule statement in accordance with the natural language grammatical rules to generate a language-based structure of the rule statement that identifies the symbols used and their interrelationships with respect to a sentence structure, wherein the parsing reports how each word in the rule statement is categorized into: a) terms defined in the vocabulary, b) names defined in the vocabulary for individual things, c) connecting symbols of function forms defined in the vocabulary, d) key words and phrases, quantifiers, and logical connectives, and e) words that are not recognized; at the computing system, processing the language-based structure of the rule statement corresponding to an expression to generate an expression model; at the computing system, processing the expression model to generate a logical model wherein processing the expression model comprises: a) relating synonymous terms to a single concept; b) relating synonymous forms and related noun forms to a single fact type; c) relating synonymous names to a single instance; d) relating each instance to its corresponding concept; e) determining identifying fact types for concepts; determining generalizations between concepts; and g) reporting logical inconsistencies, if any; at the computing system, processing the logical model to generate a platform-independent implementation model in response to a request for such generation; at the computing system, receiving a specific target platform description; and at the computing system, processing the platform-independent implementation model using the specific target platform description to generate a platform-specific implementation model. 4. The method of claim 1 wherein parsing the rule statement comprises: breaking the rule statement into tokens; identifying, among the tokens, first tokens that correspond to terms, and, if the rule statement includes names, second tokens that correspond to the names; identifying, among the tokens, third tokens that correspond to connecting symbols; identifying, among the tokens, fourth tokens that correspond to key words and phrases; and constructing a parse tree representing the language-based structure of the rule statement.