Data Structures and Algorithms
with Object-Oriented Design Patterns in Java 
Abstraction can be thought of as a mechanism for suppressing irrelevant details while at the same time emphasizing relevant ones. An important benefit of abstraction is that it makes it easier for the programmer to think about the problem to be solved.
For example, procedural abstraction lets the software designer think about the actions to be performed without worrying about how those actions are implemented. Similarly, data abstraction lets the software designer think about the objects in a program and the interactions between those objects without having to worry about how those objects are implemented.
There are also many different levels of abstraction. The lower the levels of abstraction expose more of the details of an implementation whereas the higher levels hide more of the details.
Copyright © 1998 by Bruno R. Preiss, P.Eng. All rights reserved.