With the increasing use of knowledge-based systems in public and priva
te organizations, maintenance of these systems is becoming crucial. Ho
wever, the main knowledge representation paradigms have not been caref
ully examined in terms of maintainability. In this article, we provide
a synthesis of software engineering literature on software maintenanc
e, review the state of knowledge-based systems development in practice
, and, using a case study along with a number of real-world examples,
explain why many practitioners are encountering problems in maintainin
g large knowledge-based systems. The results of the case study demonst
rate that broader spectrum, mixed-representation languages are more in
line with the software engineering maintenance principles than are si
ngle-paradigm languages.