Object-oriented programming and frame-based knowledge representation

Abstract

Object-oriented programming is a programming paradigm that emphasizes the role of objects as being the primary concern in the programming task. The notion of frames as introduced by Minsky (1975) emphasizes their role for the representation of knowledge. The two concepts are often confused because they operate with overlapping terminology. The basic premise of this work is that objects and frames can and should be related by implementation. For illustrating how frames may be implemented, the author uses a specific frame language called FrameTalk and the prototypical example of a default slot description. In FrameTalk, frames are implemented by classes, and slot descriptions are transformed into a set of slot accessor methods. The implementation makes use of the meta level concepts of the Common Lisp Object System.