Software
Now a day's every field has been embedded with computers. Computers have become an integral part of human lives. Physically all computers are look alike. Almost every person is using a computer for fulfilling his/her some of needs. Starting from merchant calculator to top most complex data driven applications are using by human beings. Some of the people even don't know how it works, although they are using computers in somewhat manner. As I mention above, almost all computers are look alike physically, but there may be a lot of difference in internal configuration, includes what are the different hardware(I will discuss in my next article) components are used to prepare the computer.
Along with the hardware, there is another most frequently audible word is Software. Let me discuss in detail…every person using a computer for his/her work. This work may differ from person to person. Likewise, for completing every work needs appropriate application. For example, to manage accounts, we need Tally, for document preparation usually we need Office, for designing Graphics we may use Maya, for making special effects we use VFx applications like Adobe After Effects, For animation purpose, we use Flash and so on. All these applications are otherwise are known as Softwares.
Technically speaking, Software is a group of statements/instructions. Each statement/instruction is a command given by the user. These are executed by the processor. With the help of software, we made impossible things to possible. In 19th century itself first, software was tried by Ada Lovelace. Unfortunately, it did not come into practice.
Software theory was first proposed by Alan Turing with two concepts, Computer Science and Software Engineering. During the first generation of computers, all instructions were written in machine code(0s and 1s). Bill Gates and Steve Jobs played a vital role in the Software History.
Claude Shannon briefly described how to implement binary(0 and 1) logic to a computer program. Based on this idea, computer programmers used 0s and 1s(binary code) to give instructions/commands to a computer, to carry out several tasks. This process is very hard to even understand. The debugging(verifying) also became the nightmare to the programmers. Because, while giving instructions in binary codes, they used punched card mechanism. If any mistake was done, the entire program might be loaded again from the beginning.
On 21 June 1948, a part of the software was successfully executed on Small-Scale Experimental Machine at Manchester University. It is known as Baby Computer. In beginning days Softwares are mainly dedicated for Universities and the army. For this, the government offers funds. As we heard, in the olden day's computers were very costly, very big size and are operated by only computer experts.
Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs designed a computer with hardware and software for user-friendly personal computers, stimulated by UNIX. This idea leads to a computer is one of our home appliance, easy to use and useful. Hardware companies (like IBM) determined to make computer parts for personal computers. To utilize these hardware parts they need an operating system. The Apple company people were not interested in vending their software because they wish to build both hardware along with software.
That means, Both hardware and software in one product. At that time, Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer and Paul Allen decided to build a software that will compatible with all types of hardware in need of an operating system. In 1980 these people had bought Quick and Dirty Operating System(QDOS) and converted it into Disk Operating System(DOS) to deliver software for IBM's hardware. From that point onwards, Software was developed in many areas and for many types of operations. In simple words, the software tells the computer what to do and how to do. A computer performs different operations according to the instruction of software. A software is developed by using any programming language.
Today Software can be classified into different categories. They are mainly System Software and Application Software.
System Software:
A program or a set of programs that is specially designed to control different operations of a computer system is called System Software. It controls the different components of the computer. The system also enables the other application programs to execute properly. Operating Systems, Device drivers, and utility programs are the examples of system software. Among these Operating systems is the main and most popular type of system software.
Application Software:
A program or set of programs that are specially designed o solve the specific problems of users is called application software. Sometimes it is also known as Software Package. There are several kinds of application software such as Commercial software, Scientific Softwares, Financial packages, Games, Multimedia Softwares.
The application software is divided into two main categories. Namely, Custom-built software and Packaged software.
Custom-built software:
The software for a particular group of people is called custom-built software. It is also known as customized software. For example, software developed for graphic designers.
Packaged Software:
The software that is developed for sale to the general public is called packaged software. Packaged software is used to solve some common problems of many people or users.
Finally, with all this information, I hope you could understand the importance of software in this Computerized world.
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See you in my next article. Thank you.
