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Abstraction in programming
The post can show you an essential programming concept. Ready to get your feet wet?
Everything is an abstraction. What?
Simply, look at the globe in the image below. It isn’t a real planet, but represents one. It doesn’t contain all of the details of the real planet (it is missing clouds, for just one easy example of something missing). It also adds in political ideas with borders and names of countries and states.
The process that the globe has experienced is called abstraction.
This post goes into detail about abstraction, and how it can be applied to programming to make life much easier. It also contains the risks of using abstractions.
Difficulty: Beginner | Easy | Normal | Challenging
Prerequisites:
- None, but for practical purposes it would be useful to be able to produce a “Hello, World!” application in your chosen programming language
Terminology
Abstraction: The process of removing unnecessary detail from a problem
Model: A simulation to reproduce the behaviour of a system
