CLOSe to the edge? Advanced Object-Oriented Techniques in the Representation of Musical Knowledge
Peter Desain, Henkjan Honing

Abstract:
CLOSe to the edge?
Advanced object­oriented techniques in the representation of musical knowledge
Peter Desain, Henkjan Honing

The modeling of knowledge about musical expression asks for quite some 
flexibility during the design process and the availability of high­level 
abstractions to represent the complex concepts and their interactions in 
this domain successfully. One would expect, because of the enthusiastic
claims made in the literature on object­oriented programming, that such 
an approach would be ideal for this task. This paper describes some aspects 
of CLOS, an modern object­oriented language that indeed provides some 
advanced construct that proved useful in the design and maintenance of a
complex system for the manipulation of expression in music. However, some 
of the mechanisms should be used with care to stay far from the edge 
beyond which programs become too complex to grasp.