computer programs and related data that provides the
Software:Software is a things which doesn't see and touch.Software is a program. There is many kinds of Software. Such as Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Power point, Photos soft etc. The different tips of Software have many work.We can learn many things from Microsoft Word .
Computer software, or just software, is a collection of
instructions for telling a computer what to do and how
to do it. Software refers to one or more computer
programs and data held in the storage of the computer
for some reasons. In other words, software is a set
of programs, procedures, algorithms and its
documentation concerned with the operation
of a data processing system. Program software
performs the function of the program it implements,
either by directly providing instructions to the
computer hardware or by serving as input to another piece of software. The term was coined to contrast to the old term hardware (meaning physical devices). In contrast to hardware, software "cannot be touched".[1] Software is also sometimes used in a more narrow sense, meaning application software only. Sometimes the term includes data that has not traditionally been associated with computers, such as film, tapes, and records.
Computer software is so called to distinguish it from computer hardware, which encompasses the physical interconnections and devices required to store and execute (or run) the software. At the lowest level, executable code consists of machine language instructions specific to an individual processor. A machine language consists of groups of binary values signifying processor instructions that change the state of the computer from its preceding state. Programs are an ordered sequence of instructions for changing the state of the computer in a particular sequence. It is usually written in high-level programming languages that are easier and more efficient for humans to use (closer to natural language) than machine language. High-level languages are compiled or interpreted into machine language object code. Software may also be written in an assembly language, essentially, a mnemonic representation of a machine language using a natural language alphabet. Assembly language must be assembled into object code via an assembler.
History :
he first theory about software was proposed by Alan Turing in his 1935 essay Computable numbers with an
application to the Entscheidungsproblem (Decision problem).
[3] The term "software" was first used in print by John
W. Tukey in 1958.[4] Colloquially, the term is often
used to mean application software. In computer science and software engineering, software is all information processed by computer system, programs and data.[4] The academic fields studying software are computer science and software engineering.
The history of computer software is most often traced back to the first software bug in 1946[citation needed]. As more and more programs enter the realm of firmware, and the hardware itself becomes smaller, cheaper and faster as predicted by Moore's law, elements of computing first considered to be software, join the ranks of hardware. Most hardware companies today have more software programmers on the payroll than hardware designers[citation needed], since software tools have automated many tasks of Printed circuit board engineers. Just like the Auto industry, the Software industry has grown from a few visionaries operating out of their garage with prototypes. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were the Henry Ford and Louis Chevrolet of their times[citation needed], who capitalized on ideas already commonly known before they started in the business. In the case of Software development, this moment is generally agreed to be the publication in the 1980s of the specifications for the IBM Personal Computer published by IBM employee Philip Don Estridge. Today his move would be seen as a type of crowd-sourcing.
Until that time, software was bundled with the hardware by Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) such as Data General, Digital Equipment and IBM[citation needed]. When a customer bought a minicomputer, at that time the smallest computer on the market, the computer did not come with Pre-installed software, but needed to be installed by engineers employed by the OEM. Computer hardware companies not only bundled their software, they also placed demands on the location of the hardware in a refrigerated space called a computer room. Most companies had their software on the books for 0 dollars, unable to claim it as an asset (this is similar to financing of popular music in those days). When Data General introduced the Data General Nova, a company called Digidyne wanted to use its RDOS operating system on its own hardware clone. Data General refused to license their software (which was hard to do, since it was on the books as a free asset), and claimed their "bundling rights". The Supreme Court set a precedent called Digidyne v. Data General in 1985. The Supreme Court let a 9th circuit decision stand, and Data General was eventually forced into licensing the Operating System software because it was ruled that restricting the license to only DG hardware was an illegal tying arrangement.[5] Soon after, IBM 'published' its DOS source for free,[citation needed] and Microsoft was born. Unable to sustain the loss from lawyer's fees, Data General ended up being taken over by EMC Corporation. The Supreme Court decision made it possible to value software, and also purchase Software patents. The move by IBM was almost a protest at the time. Few in the industry believed that anyone would profit from it other than IBM (through free publicity). Microsoft and Apple were able to thus cash in on 'soft' products.
There are many successful companies today that sell only software products, though there are still many common software licensing problems due to the complexity of designs and poor documentation, leading to patent trolls.
With open software specifications and the possibility of software licensing, new opportunities arose for software tools that then became the de facto standard, such as DOS for operating systems, but also various proprietary word processing and spreadsheet programs. In a similar growth pattern, proprietary development methods became standard Software development methodology.
Types of software
A layer structure showing where the operating system software and application software are situated while running on a typical desktop computer
Software includes all the various forms and roles that
digitally stored data may have and play in a computer (or similar system), regardless of whether the data is
used as code for a CPU, or other interpreter, or
whether it represents other kinds of information.
Software thus encompasses a wide array of
products that may be developed using different
techniques such as ordinary programming languages, scripting languages, microcode, or an FPGA configuration.
The types of software include web pages developed in languages and frameworks like HTML, PHP, Perl, JSP, ASP.NET, XML, and desktop applications like OpenOffice.org, Microsoft Word developed in languages like C, C++, Objective-C, Java, C#, or Smalltalk. Application software usually runs on an underlying software operating systems such as Linux or Microsoft Windows. Software (or firmware) is also used in video games and for the configurable parts of the logic systems of automobiles, televisions, and other consumer electronics.
Practical computer systems divide software systems into three major classes[citation needed]: system software, programming software and application software, although the distinction is arbitrary, and often blurred.
System software
System software is computer software designed to operate the computer hardware to provide basic functionality and to provide a platform for running application software.[6][7] System software includes device drivers, operating systems, servers, utilities, and window systems.
System software is responsible for managing a variety of independent hardware components, so that they can work together harmoniously. Its purpose is to unburden the application software programmer from the often complex details of the particular computer being used, including such accessories as communications devices, printers, device readers, displays and keyboards, and also to partition the computer's resources such as memory and processor time in a safe and stable manner.Programming software
Programming software include tools in the form of
programs or applications that software developers use to create, debug, maintain, or otherwise support
other programs and applications. The term usually
refers to relatively simple programs such as compilers,
debuggers, interpreters, linkers, and text editors, that
can be combined together to accomplish a task, much as one might use multiple hand tools to fix a physical object. Programming tools are intended to assist a programmer in writing computer programs, and they may be combined in an integrated development environment (IDE) to more easily manage all of these functions.Application software
Application software is developed to perform in any task that benefits from computation. It is a set of programs that allows the computer to perform a specific data processing job for the user. It is a broad category, and encompasses software of many kinds, including the internet browser being used to display this page.
