Thought for the Day

What we think or what we know or

what we believe is, in the end, of little
consequence. The only consequence is
what we do.
– John Ruskin
 Abstraction
• Complexity is hard for humans to deal with

• In many areas of life we use abstraction to

deal with complexity
 Abstraction in Modern
Programming Languages
• Procedural Abstraction
– Methods allow us to use and to create abstract
procedures or processes

objStream.writeObject(obj);

calculateTax(employee[k]);
 Abstract Data Types
Data Abstraction
• View data in an abstract way

• Formal definition:
An Abstract Data Type is a pair <V, O> where:
V is a set of values
O is a set of operations defined on V

• Abbreviate: ADT
 Basic Data Types
• Types such as int, double, etc. are “built
in” ADTs

• For int in Java:

V = { -2 147 483 648 ... 2 147 483 647 }
O = { +, -, *, /, %, ~, |, &, ^, <<, >>,
>>>, <, <=, ==, >=, >, !=, = }
 New Abstract Data Types
• Many programming languages allow us to
create our own new ADTs
• Java: class
• Example:
– Towers of Hanoi “Tower” class
V = { stacks of n ≥ 0 disks of diff. sizes }
O = { add, remove, getID }
 Client and Implementor Views
• ADTs allow us to hide details of the
implementation from “clients”
– Vital for abstraction

• In Java: private

• Try to keep separate:

– implementor view
– client view
 Client Views
• In the notes, distinguished by grey
background

• Also use simplified UML class diagrams:

Tower
disks, numDisks, ID
Tower
add, remove, getID
 Interfaces and Data Abstraction
• Sometimes a client will use an object
defined by an interface

• It does not need to know anything else

about the type of the actual object
– Hidden implementation detail
void delegate (ManagerialResponsibilities m)
{ ... m.manage(); ...
} // delegate
 Closing Comment
• Geoff Rehmet (Technical Business
Manager, Internet Solutions):

…the single most powerful construct I learned

[at Rhodes] is the concept of abstraction.
… [it] gives me an infinite lead over my peers