David is such an amazing mentor. I love the way how he is enthusiastic during his lectures. He's so up in the content that you can barely see time passing by. As a teacher myself, I couldn't appreciate more his classes and the way he empowers his students. His classes inspires me to always get better, prepare better classes, care about my students and keep giving back to the community things I've learnt. Hope to study in Harvard (or Yale) so I could watch one live class hahaha All kudos to you sir. The world needs more people like that.
David, you are and always have been that smart teacher who can explain things in the clearest way possible. Thanks for making this valuable course available for free on RU-vid. Just want to let you know that you're just plain awesome. :))).
You Are really inspiring Professor David J. Malan. I got interested learning CS50 because of you. Just finished CS50T through edX. And currently enjoying CS50x. Thank you for giving an inspiration to the world 👏👏👏
We can draw cube more easily because the shape is in our memory saved by means of english language. So, is using memory and language = abstraction? Its getting more into neuroscience
Certainly not a guy who believes that he is the best thing since the invention of sliced bread pacing around on a stage that is way too big for his tiny show.
Well the video is good, but we do need to know the real meaning of abstraction. Whatever the guy was talking is "generalization", which can be one of the outcomes of abstraction. In order to know the real meaning of the word, we need to know the original meaning which is "to separate something from a whole". Have you seen abstract paintings? If you dont know the real meaning of the verb abstract, then you won't understand what those paintings mean. It means that the paintings have separated some elements or ideas or whatever, usually from the real thing, like nature, be it a forest or landscape, and only show those elements or ideas. This process or mechanism is also often used in scientific or philosophical areas to concentrate on separated outcome by analyzing it in order to understand the whole . This can be specific, general, or vague like those abstract paintings, depending on how you do the separation.
Abstract means 1540s, "to draw away, withdraw, remove" (transitive), from Latin abstractus or else from abstract (adj.). From 1610s in the philosophical sense "consider as a general object or idea without regard to matter." When you abstract something, you remove the (for you) unnecessary details from something and get a general object or idea in return. There are obviously different levels of abstractions as shown in the video. And depending on the point of view the idea or the object could be called abstract or specific. For a driver the motor of his car is very abstract (he just knows its the driving force) he doesent need to know more to drive ther car. For a mechatronic this same motor is more specific he can name some of the parts, take it apart and hopefully repair it when broken he needs to know as no more than whats needed to repair the motor, The vehicle manufacturer who build the motor very likely has an even better understanding of the motor and its properties, for him its very specific he needs to know as much as possible to build a save and high quality motor that doesent fall apart immediately.
@With Style in Computer Science its more synonymous with Generalisation or forgetting the implementation, i.e focusing on "what it does" than "how it does".
