APS - Abstractions (Lesson)

Abstractions

Where are Abstractions Found?

Abstractions are everywhere and used every day. When you wave your hand, do you consciously tell your hand to move? No, you decide to wave and then the programming in your brain handles telling the muscles and bones when to move. Same with smiling, walking, and many other items we do. These are examples of abstraction: we decide to do it, and it happens.

In a calculator, do you need to know exactly how the computer stores the information you give it in memory, and then provides the answer? No, it happens, it is not necessary for you to know. All you need to know is that if you put the information into the calculator in the correct format, the answer will be provided to you.  

The same happens in programming depending on the level of the computer programmer. If you are not the background detail programmer that controls the very basic functions of the computer, you write with some abstraction. We will see that just as you want to move your hand, at the level of programming that you are working with here in Alice, the code behind move is abstracted from you. You will tell something to move and maybe how far or for how long, put the actual process of doing the move, how the program works with your basic instructions, is abstracted from you. You do not have to know in order to program.

Thus in programming there are many levels of abstraction. In Alice we are using a high-level programming language, a block language which has many functions and processes available for use with parameters (selected choices). The programmer does not need to know the fine details of how the task works, it just does. This is where we will start learning programming.

In the previous module we started with some very basics. Did you need to know how the scene you chose is stored in memory or in storage on your computer? Or the basic program? No, all you need to know is that it happens when you tell the program to save. This is the abstraction.

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