Computer software

Computer software, or just software, is the collection of computer programs and related data that provide the instructions telling a computer what to do. We can also say software refers to one or more computer programs and data held in the storage of the computer for some purposes. Program software performs the function of the program it implements, either by directly providing instructions to...

History

The 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[citation needed]. Colloquially, the term is often used to mean application software. In computer science and software engineering, software is all information processed...

Overview

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,...

Types of software

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 blurr...

System software

System software provides the basic functions for computer usage and helps run the computer hardware and system. It includes a combination of the following: device drivers operating systems servers utilities 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...

Programming software

Programming software usually provides tools to assist a programmer in writing computer programs, and software using different programming languages in a more convenient way. The tools include: compilers debuggers interpreters linkers text editors An Integrated development environment (IDE) is a single application that attempts to manage all these functio...

Application software

System software does not aim at a certain application fields. In contrast,different application software offers different functions based on users and the area it served.Application software is developed for some certain purpose,which either can be a certain program or a collection of some programmes,such as a graphic browser or the data base management system. Application software allows end users...