Software
Software consists of programs and enables the computer to perform particular tasks, as contrast to its physical components that can only do the tasks they are mechanically designed for. The term “software” was first used by John W. Tukey in 1958. In computer science and software engineering, computer software is all about computer programs. There are application software such as word processor, system software such as operating systems, and middleware that controls and co-ordinates the distributed systems, and many more.
Computer software is so called in contrast to the computer hardware that comprehends the physical interconnections and devices that are required to store and execute the software. In computers, software is loaded into RAM and then executed in the central processing unit. At the lowest level, software consists of a machine language specific to an individual processor. A machine language consists of the groups of binary values signifying processor instructions that change the state of computer from its preceding state.
Software is an ordered sequence of the instructions to change the computer hardware’s state in a specific sequence. It is usually written in the high-level programming languages that are easier and more efficient for humans to use than machine language. The high-level languages are compiled or interpreted into the machine language object code. Software may also be written in an assembly language, a mnemonic representation of a machine language by using a natural language alphabet. The assembly language must be assembled into the object code through an assembler.
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Submitted by admin on Thu, 05/31/2007 - 06:35