Abstraction

Abstraction

What is abstraction?

Abstraction is a representation of the real world but hiding some details.

It is an important tool in problem solving 

An example of abstraction is the London tube map, this is because it doesn't have all the detail of the exact track route and also the surrounding areas, it is to the point and hides unnecessary detail.

Another example of abstraction is games for example The Sims. (Raising a child is very simplistic and also there is removed detail for example the child and ageing process.)

Abstraction can be used to try and simplify a problem that has already been solved.

you need to turn the information from analogue to digital, analysing the size and shape of the item that is being scanned. When information and problems are simplified you can reuse certain abstracts. In abstraction you are taking away details that you do not need to monitor. The weather forecast remove levels above 30 feet as no-one needs to know higher than that in detail. 

Scientists have decided which information is relevant and discard any other information.

The moon model from Google is an example of abstraction:

1. It's 2D instead of 3D
2. The mission paths 
3. The elevation is shown in colours instead of actual heights
4. There is limited resolution 

Abstraction is key for programming.

Functional Decomposition is breaking down problems into smaller sub problems.

Procedural Abstraction is a way to separate out values used in a model in a set way, allows us to create different algorithms that allow you to input different values.

Functional Abstraction calculates the square root or generates a random number for example abstraction is taken one step further.Using a function doesn't require you to know anything about how the computation is carried out.

Data Abstraction the data or information is relevant to solving a problem .