Abstract
Abstraction mechanisms are the principal instruments available to designers and programmers for describing in an accurate, but also simple and suggestive, way the complexity of the problems to be solved. In a programming language, two classes of abstraction mechanisms are distinguished. That which provides control abstraction and that which provides data abstraction. The former provides the programmer the ability to hide procedural data; the latter allow the definition and use of sophisticated data types without referring to how such types will be implemented. In this chapter we will be concerned with the mechanisms for control abstraction. We will first discuss the concept of procedure (or function, or subprogram) and the notions of parameter passing methods and of higher-order functions. We will then tackle the concept of exceptions, that is exceptional conditions which can be detected and managed using protected blocks and handlers.
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Gabbrielli, M., Martini, S. (2010). Control Abstraction. In: Programming Languages: Principles and Paradigms. Undergraduate Topics in Computer Science. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84882-914-5_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84882-914-5_7
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