3-1-1 Information Hiding and Abstraction

Information Hiding:

Hiding the design complexity of a system to simplify it for the user.

• Real world example of information hiding: driving a car.
• Computing example of information hiding: Windows

Abstraction:
The process of removing unnecessary details (information hiding) in the representation of a system.

• Real world example of abstraction: map of an Underground system.

Abstraction in Computing= generalising.

Representation- used to produce the complexity of a problem, in a simple design.


Levels of Abstraction:

• Appication: hides very complex processes behind an icon.
• High Level Programming Language: hides a number of low-level commands behind a high-level commmand.
• Machine Code: hides the complexity of the underlying electronics behind a machine code command
• Electronics: hides the physical processes of atoms and neutrons with basic electronic componenets.