According to The Economist journal, "a common cause of disaster in software development is that the end product is precisely what the customer ordered. In a world moving at Internet speed, a customer's objectives are constantly being revised, so programmers have to be able to hit a moving target."

One path towards a solution to this costly problem is to support a more declarative form of programming. Then, the customer can specify what is wanted, and the specification can be run directly as if it were a program. It is easier to change a specification than to change software written in a conventional language, particularly since the customer can change the spec and check the results directly.

We describe a current Web service called Internet Business Logic (IBL). It is based on some theory papers from the 80's and 90's that show how to reduce the need for procedural programming. One specifies requirements to the IBL as English syllogisms and relational database tables, using one's own terminology. There are no limitations on vocabulary, yet there is also no need to maintain a dictionary or grammar of English. When the syllogisms are run, the reasons why each result follows from the spec and the database can be inspected in hypertexted, step-by-step English explanations. If a syllogism specifies a transaction, one can ask for an explanation of what will be done, and why, before the database is changed.

We show some examples of running IBL specifications for Billing, Supply Chain Management, and Financial applications.