4.4.1.5 Procedural abstraction and 4.4.1.6 Functional abstraction and 4.4.1.7 Data abstraction and 4.4.1.8 Problem abstraction/reduction

Question 1

What is procedural abstraction?

Answer 1

The result of abstracting away the actual values used in any particular computation is a computational pattern or computational method – a procedure.

Question 2

What is functional abstraction?

Answer 2

The result of a procedural abstraction is a procedure, not a function. To get a function requires yet another abstraction, which disregards the particular computation method and this is a functional abstraction.

Question 3

What is data abstraction?

Answer 3

Data abstraction is a methodology that enables us to isolate how a compound data object is used from the details of how it is constructed. For example, a stack could be implemented as an array and a pointer for top of stack.

Question 4

What is problem abstraction/reduction?

Answer 4

Details are removed until the problem is represented in a way that is possible to solve because the problem reduces to one that has already been solved.