Application software definition, a program used for a particular application (opposed to system program). Software is an all-encompassing term that is used in contrast to hardware, which are the tangible components of a computer. So everything else in your computer that is not hardware is software. An application is basically a type of software. So the difference between software and application is very. Application software is a type of computer program that performs a specific personal, educational, and business function. Each program is designed to assist the user with a particular process, which may be related to productivity, creativity, and/. Systems vs Applications Systems can have a user interface but are primarily intended to provide services to other systems and applications. Generally speaking, systems are more complex than applications.
A diagram showing how the user interacts with application software on a typical desktop computer.The application software layer interfaces with the operating system, which in turn communicates with the hardware. The arrows indicate information flow.
Computer software, or simply software, is a collection of data or computer instructions that tell the computer how to work. This is in contrast to physical hardware, from which the system is built and actually performs the work. In computer science and software engineering, computer software is all information processed by computer systems, programs and data. Computer software includes computer programs, libraries and related non-executable data, such as online documentation or digital media. Computer hardware and software require each other and neither can be realistically used on its own.
At the lowest programming level,[clarification needed]executable code consists of machine language instructions supported by an individual processorâtypically a central processing unit (CPU) or a graphics processing unit (GPU). A machine language consists of groups of binary values signifying processor instructions that change the state of the computer from its preceding state. For example, an instruction may change the value stored in a particular storage location in the computerâan effect that is not directly observable to the user. An instruction may also invoke one of many input or output operations, for example displaying some text on a computer screen; causing state changes which should be visible to the user. The processor executes the instructions in the order they are provided, unless it is instructed to 'jump' to a different instruction, or is interrupted by the operating system. As of 2015, most personal computers, smartphone devices and servers have processors with multiple execution units or multiple processors performing computation together, and computing has become a much more concurrent activity than in the past.
The majority of software is written in high-level programming languages. They are easier and more efficient for programmers because they are closer to natural languages than machine languages.[1] High-level languages are translated into machine language using a compiler or an interpreter or a combination of the two. Software may also be written in a low-level assembly language, which has strong correspondence to the computer's machine language instructions and is translated into machine language using an assembler.
History
An outline (algorithm) for what would have been the first piece of software was written by Ada Lovelace in the 19th century, for the planned Analytical Engine.[2] She created proofs to show how the engine would calculate Bernoulli Numbers.[2] Because of the proofs and the algorithm, she is considered the first computer programmer.[3][4]
The first theory about softwareâprior to creation of computers as we know them todayâwas proposed by Alan Turing in his 1935 essay On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem (decision problem).
This eventually led to the creation of the academic fields of computer science and software engineering; Both fields study software and its creation. Computer science is the theoretical study of computer and software (Turing's essay is an example of computer science), whereas software engineering is the application of engineering and development of software.
However, prior to 1946, software was not yet the programs stored in the memory of stored-program digital computers, as we now understand it. The first electronic computing devices were instead rewired in order to 'reprogram' them.
In 2000, Fred Shapiro, a librarian at the Yale Law School, published a letter revealing that John Wilder Tukey's 1958 paper 'The Teaching of Concrete Mathematics'[5][6] contained the earliest known usage of the term 'software' found in a search of JSTOR's electronic archives, predating the OED's citation by two years.[7] This led many to credit Tukey with coining the term, particularly in obituaries published that same year,[8] although Tukey never claimed credit for any such coinage. In 1995, Paul Niquette claimed he had originally coined the term in October 1953, although he could not find any documents supporting his claim.[9] The earliest known publication of the term 'software' in an engineering context was in August 1953 by Richard R. Carhart, in a Rand Corporation Research Memorandum.[10]
Types
Blender Game Engine, a free software.
On virtually all computer platforms, software can be grouped into a few broad categories.
Purpose, or domain of use
Based on the goal, computer software can be divided into:
Nature or domain of execution
Programming tools
Programming tools are also software in the form of programs or applications that software developers (also known asprogrammers, coders, hackers or software engineers Free windows 8 download full version. ) use to create, debug, maintain (i.e. improve or fix), or otherwise support software.
Software is written in one or more programming languages; there are many programming languages in existence, and each has at least one implementation, each of which consists of its own set of programming tools. These tools may be relatively self-contained programs such as compilers, debuggers, interpreters, linkers, and text editors, that can be combined together to accomplish a task; or they may form an integrated development environment (IDE), which combines much or all of the functionality of such self-contained tools. IDEs may do this by either invoking the relevant individual tools or by re-implementing their functionality in a new way. An IDE can make it easier to do specific tasks, such as searching in files in a particular project. Many programming language implementations provide the option of using both individual tools or an IDE.
TopicsArchitecture
Users often see things differently from programmers. People who use modern general purpose computers (as opposed to embedded systems, analog computers and supercomputers) usually see three layers of software performing a variety of tasks: platform, application, and user software.
Execution
Computer software has to be 'loaded' into the computer's storage (such as the hard drive or memory). Once the software has loaded, the computer is able to execute the software. This involves passing instructions from the application software, through the system software, to the hardware which ultimately receives the instruction as machine code. Each instruction causes the computer to carry out an operationâmoving data, carrying out a computation, or altering the control flow of instructions.
Data movement is typically from one place in memory to another. Sometimes it involves moving data between memory and registers which enable high-speed data access in the CPU. Moving data, especially large amounts of it, can be costly. So, this is sometimes avoided by using 'pointers' to data instead. Computations include simple operations such as incrementing the value of a variable data element. More complex computations may involve many operations and data elements together.
Quality and reliability
Software quality is very important, especially for commercial and system software like Microsoft Office, Microsoft Windows and Linux. If software is faulty (buggy), it can delete a person's work, crash the computer and do other unexpected things. Faults and errors are called 'bugs' which are often discovered during alpha and beta testing. Software is often also a victim to what is known as software aging, the progressive performance degradation resulting from a combination of unseen bugs.
Many bugs are discovered and eliminated (debugged) through software testing. However, software testing rarelyâif everâeliminates every bug; some programmers say that 'every program has at least one more bug' (Lubarsky's Law).[13] In the waterfall method of software development, separate testing teams are typically employed, but in newer approaches, collectively termed agile software development, developers often do all their own testing, and demonstrate the software to users/clients regularly to obtain feedback. Software can be tested through unit testing, regression testing and other methods, which are done manually, or most commonly, automatically, since the amount of code to be tested can be quite large. For instance, NASA has extremely rigorous software testing procedures for many operating systems and communication functions. Many NASA-based operations interact and identify each other through command programs. This enables many people who work at NASA to check and evaluate functional systems overall. Programs containing command software enable hardware engineering and system operations to function much easier together.
License
The software's license gives the user the right to use the software in the licensed environment, and in the case of free software licenses, also grants other rights such as the right to make copies.
Proprietary software can be divided into two types:
Open source software, on the other hand, comes with a free software license, granting the recipient the rights to modify and redistribute the software.
Patents
Software patents, like other types of patents, are theoretically supposed to give an inventor an exclusive, time-limited license for a detailed idea (e.g. an algorithm) on how to implement a piece of software, or a component of a piece of software. Ideas for useful things that software could do, and user requirements, are not supposed to be patentable, and concrete implementations (i.e. the actual software packages implementing the patent) are not supposed to be patentable eitherâthe latter are already covered by copyright, generally automatically. So software patents are supposed to cover the middle area, between requirements and concrete implementation. In some countries, a requirement for the claimed invention to have an effect on the physical world may also be part of the requirements for a software patent to be held validâalthough since all useful software has effects on the physical world, this requirement may be open to debate. Meanwhile, American copyright law was applied to various aspects of the writing of the software code.[14]
Software patents are controversial in the software industry with many people holding different views about them. One of the sources of controversy is that the aforementioned split between initial ideas and patent does not seem to be honored in practice by patent lawyersâfor example the patent for Aspect-Oriented Programming (AOP), which purported to claim rights over any programming tool implementing the idea of AOP, howsoever implemented. Another source of controversy is the effect on innovation, with many distinguished experts and companies arguing that software is such a fast-moving field that software patents merely create vast additional litigation costs and risks, and actually retard innovation. In the case of debates about software patents outside the United States, the argument has been made that large American corporations and patent lawyers are likely to be the primary beneficiaries of allowing or continue to allow software patents.
Design and implementation
Design and implementation of software varies depending on the complexity of the software. For instance, the design and creation of Microsoft Word took much more time than designing and developing Microsoft Notepad because the latter has much more basic functionality.
Software is usually designed and created (aka coded/written/programmed) in integrated development environments (IDE) like Eclipse, IntelliJ and Microsoft Visual Studio that can simplify the process and compile the software (if applicable). As noted in a different section, software is usually created on top of existing software and the application programming interface (API) that the underlying software provides like GTK+, JavaBeans or Swing. Libraries (APIs) can be categorized by their purpose. For instance, the Spring Framework is used for implementing enterprise applications, the Windows Forms library is used for designing graphical user interface (GUI) applications like Microsoft Word, and Windows Communication Foundation is used for designing web services. When a program is designed, it relies upon the API. For instance, a Microsoft Windows desktop application might call API functions in the .NET Windows Forms library like Form1.Close() and Form1.Show()[15] to close or open the application. Without these APIs, the programmer needs to write these functionalities entirely themselves. Companies like Oracle and Microsoft provide their own APIs so that many applications are written using their software libraries that usually have numerous APIs in them.
Data structures such as hash tables, arrays, and binary trees, and algorithms such as quicksort, can be useful for creating software.
Computer software has special economic characteristics that make its design, creation, and distribution different from most other economic goods.[specify][16][17]
A person who creates software is called a programmer, software engineer or software developer, terms that all have a similar meaning. More informal terms for programmer also exist such as 'coder' and 'hacker' â although use of the latter word may cause confusion, because it is more often used to mean someone who illegally breaks into computer systems.
Industry and organizations
A great variety of software companies and programmers in the world comprise a software industry. Software can be quite a profitable industry: Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft was the richest person in the world in 2009, largely due to his ownership of a significant number of shares in Microsoft, the company responsible for Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office software products - both market leaders in their respective product categories.
Non-profit software organizations include the Free Software Foundation, GNU Project and the Mozilla Foundation. Software standard organizations like the W3C, IETF develop recommended software standards such as XML, HTTP and HTML, so that software can interoperate through these standards.
Other well-known large software companies include Google, IBM, TCS, Infosys, Wipro, HCL Technologies, Oracle, Novell, SAP, Symantec, Adobe Systems, Sidetrade and Corel, while small companies often provide innovation.
See alsoReferences
Sources
External links
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Software&oldid=917694658'
GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP), version 2.6, a freely distributed application
Application software (app for short) is software designed to perform a group of coordinated functions, tasks, or activities for the benefit of the user. Examples of an application include a word processor, a spreadsheet, an accounting application, a web browser, an email client, a media player, a file viewer, an aeronautical flight simulator, a console game or a photo editor. The collective nounapplication software refers to all applications collectively.[1] This contrasts with system software, which is mainly involved with running the computer.
Applications may be bundled with the computer and its system software or published separately, and may be coded as proprietary, open-source or university projects.[2] Apps built for mobile platforms are called mobile apps.
Terminology[edit]
In information technology, an application (app), application program or software application is a computer program designed to help people perform an activity. An application thus differs from an operating system (which runs a computer), a utility (which performs maintenance or general-purpose chores), and a programming tool (with which computer programs are created)[original research?]. Depending on the activity for which it was designed, an application can manipulate text, numbers, audio, graphics and a combination of these elements. Some application packages focus on a single task, such as word processing; others, called integrated software include several applications.[3]
User-written software tailors systems to meet the user's specific needs. User-written software includes spreadsheet templates, word processor macros, scientific simulations, audio, graphics, and animation scripts. Even email filters are a kind of user software. Users create this software themselves and often overlook how important it is.
The delineation between system software such as operating systems and application software is not exact, however, and is occasionally the object of controversy.[4] For example, one of the key questions in the United States v. Microsoft Corp.antitrust trial was whether Microsoft's Internet Explorerweb browser was part of its Windows operating system or a separable piece of application software. As another example, the GNU/Linux naming controversy is, in part, due to disagreement about the relationship between the Linux kernel and the operating systems built over this kernel. In some types of embedded systems, the application software and the operating system software may be indistinguishable to the user, as in the case of software used to control a VCR, DVD player or microwave oven. The above definitions may exclude some applications that may exist on some computers in large organizations. For an alternative definition of an app: see Application Portfolio Management.
Metonymy[edit]
The word 'application', once used as an adjective, is not restricted to the 'of or pertaining to application software' meaning.[5] For example, concepts such as application programming interface (API), application server, application virtualization, application lifecycle management and portable application apply to all computer programs alike, not just application software.
Apps and killer apps[edit]
Some applications are available in versions for several different platforms; others only work on one and are thus called, for example, a Geography application for Microsoft Windows, or an Android application for education, or a Linux game. Sometimes a new and popular application arises which only runs on one platform, increasing the desirability of that platform. This is called a killer application or killer app. For example, VisiCalc was the first modern spreadsheet software for the Apple II and helped selling the then-new personal computers into offices. For Blackberry it was their email software.
In recent years, the shortened term 'app' (coined in 1981 or earlier[6]) has become popular to refer to applications for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets, the shortened form matching their typically smaller scope compared to applications on PCs. Even more recently, the shortened version is used for desktop application software as well.
Classification[edit]
There are many different and alternative ways in order to classify application software.
By the legal point of view, application software is mainly classified with a black box approach, in relation to the rights of its final end-users or subscribers (with eventual intermediate and tiered subscription levels).
Software applications are also classified in respect of the programming language in which the source code is written or executed, and respect of their purpose and outputs.
By property and use rights[edit]
Application software is usually distinguished among two main classes: closed source vs open source software applications, and among free or proprietary software applications.
Proprietary software is placed under the exclusive copyright, and a software license grants limited usage rights. The open-closed principle states that software may be 'open only for extension, but not for modification'. Such applications can only get add-on by third-parties.
Free and open-source software shall be run, distributed, sold or extended for any purpose, and -being open- shall be modified or reversed in the same way.
FOSS software applications released under a free license may be perpetual and also royalty-free. Perhaps, the owner, the holder or third-party enforcer of any right (copyright, trademark, patent, or ius in re aliena) are entitled to add exceptions, limitations, time decays or expiring dates to the license terms of use.
Public-domain software is a type of FOSS, which is royalty-free and - openly or reservedly- can be run, distributed, modified, reversed, republished or created in derivative works without any copyright attribution and therefore revocation. It can even be sold, but without transferring the public domain property to other single subjects. Public-domain SW can be released under an (un)licensing legal statement, which enforces those terms and conditions for an indefinite duration (for a lifetime, or forever).
What Is A Application SoftwareBy coding language[edit]
Since the development and near-universal adoption of the web, an important distinction that has emerged, has been between web applications â written with HTML, JavaScript and other web-native technologies and typically requiring one to be online and running a web browser, and the more traditional native applications written in whatever languages are available for one's particular type of computer. There has been a contentious debate in the computing community regarding web applications replacing native applications for many purposes, especially on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. Web apps have indeed greatly increased in popularity for some uses, but the advantages of applications make them unlikely to disappear soon, if ever. Furthermore, the two can be complementary, and even integrated.[7][8][9]
By purpose and output[edit]
Application software can also be seen as being either horizontal or vertical.[10][11] Horizontal applications are more popular and widespread, because they are general purpose, for example word processors or databases. Vertical applications are niche products, designed for a particular type of industry or business, or department within an organization. Integrated suites of software will try to handle every specific aspect possible of, for example, manufacturing or banking worker, or accounting, or customer service.
There are many types of application software:[12]
LibreOffice Writer, an open-sourceword processor that is a component of LibreOffice (running on Linux Mint)
Applications can also be classified by computing platform such as a particular operating system, delivery network such as in cloud computing and Web 2.0 applications, or delivery devices such as mobile apps for mobile devices.
The operating system itself can be considered application software when performing simple calculating, measuring, rendering, and word processing tasks not used to control hardware via command-line interface or graphical user interface. This does not include application software bundled within operating systems such as a software calculator or text editor.
Information worker software[edit]
Entertainment software[edit]
Educational software[edit]
Enterprise infrastructure software[edit]
Simulation software[edit]
Media development software[edit]
Product engineering software[edit]
What Is Application Software Definition Examples & TypesSoftware engineering[edit]
See also[edit]References[edit]
External links[edit]
What Is System Software
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