Describe what you understand by abstraction, and how it is relevant to software engineering.

Two parts: Abstraction: Separating ideas from reality / implementationHiding (irrelevant) details from the userA representation / simplification of a concept Application: Object oriented programming is full of abstractions e.g. polymorphism, inheritance, objects themselves are an abstraction of real life concepts.Software engineering will rely on behaviours and attributes, not how a real-life object behaves e.g. in a racing game how is the car programmed?Modularity : functions will be used in order to abstract unnecessary data or operations from the user. For example, in Python there is a list.sort() method. Which algorithm is used here? Do we need to know?Layering from the Operating System : e.g. a command in HLL e.g. Python is much simpler than in LLL. We do not need to concern ourselves with how the command works, hence we can focus on the logic behind it.

Answered by Jacob N. Computing tutor

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