Modular Node Thingy

Hi guys,

I’m working on a modular thingy (like Max/MSP, Reason, Maya’s Hypershade, etc) but I can’t find any information on this type of thing because I don’t know what to search for (it seams like “modular thingy” isn’t relevant to Google…). Does this kind of network/tree have a specific name? Any reference lecture/book/code? I’m having a hard time building a good and flexible design. Any idea or path I could follow?

I’m looking for an Object-Oriented solution, obviously.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!