Introduction to Computer Software?

 A computer system consists of two parts.

·     Computer Hardware, which is constituted by the physical components of a computer.

·     Computer Software, which tells the hardware what to do and how to do it.

The Computer Hardware is a part of a machine, it can understand only two basic concepts. On and Off, called binary. Computer Software was developed to use the binary to tell the computer hardware what to do.

The computer hardware cannot think and make decisions on its own. The hardware needs a software (a set of programs) to instruct what has to be done. A program is a set of instructions arranged in a sequence to guide the computer to find a solution for a given problem . The process of writing a program is called programming.

Computer programmers write a set of instructions (programs) using a specific programming language .Such instructions are known as the source code. Another computer program called compiler is then used to transform the source code in to a language that the computer can understand. The result is an executable computer program, which is another name for software.

The following are some examples of computer software.

Computer games software : This is widely used as a form of entertainment software, which has many genres.

Driver software : This allows a computer to interact with additional hardware devices such as printers, scanners, and video cards.

Educational software:  This includes programs and games that help in teaching and providing exercises to help memorize facts. Education software can be diversely used _ from teaching computer – related activities such as typing to explaining higher education subjects such as chemistry.

Media players and media development software : These are  specifically designed to play and/or edit digital media files such as music and videos.

Productivity software : This term is used to denote a program that allows the user to be more productive in a business sense. Examples of such software include word processors , database management utilities , and presentation software.

Operating system : These help in coordinating system resources and create an environment for the execution of programs. Examples of operating system include windows Vista , Mac OS X , and Linux.