CHAPTER 4

COMPUTER SOFTWARE
What Is Software?
• Software is the general term for a myriad of programs used to
operate and manipulate computers and their peripheral devices or to
perform a specific task using a computer as the vehicle
• Types of Software
• Application Software : includes a variety of programs that can be
further subdivided into general-purpose and application-specific
categories.
• System Software:
BUSINESS APPLICATION SOFTWARE
• supports the reengineering and automation of business processes
with strategic e-business applications like customer relationship
management, enterprise resource planning, and supply chain
management .

• Software suites, which are very likely the most widely used
productivity software packages. Software suites bundle together a
variety of general-purpose software applications
 SOFTWARE SUITES AND INTEGRATED
PACKAGES
WEB BROWSERS
AND MORE
• Web browser is the most important and most widely used software
application—even more than e-mail
ELECTRONIC MAIL, INSTANT
MESSAGING,AND BLOGS
• E-mail has changed the way people work and communicate. Computer
users depend on e-mail software to communicate with one another by
sending and receiving electronic messages and file attachments via the
Internet or their organizations’ intranets or extranets.
• Instant messaging (IM) is an e-mail/computer-conferencing hybrid
technology that has grown so rapidly that it has become a standard
method of electronic messaging for millions of Internet users worldwide
• A blog (Web log) is a Web site of personal or commercial origin that
uses a dated log format updated, daily or very frequently, with new
information about a particular subject or range of subjects.
PERSONAL INFORMATION MANAGERS
• The personal information manager (PIM) is a popular software
package for end-user productivity and collaboration, as well as a
popular application for personal digital assistant (PDA) handheld
devices
• Groupware is software that helps workgroups and teams collaborate
to accomplish group assignments.
Cloud Computing
• Cloud computing is a style of computing in which software and, in
some cases, virtualized hardware resources are provided as a service
over the Internet. Users need not have knowledge of, expertise in, or
control over the technology infrastructure “in the cloud” that
supports them.
Software Licensing
• the software must be licensed for use. Software licensing is a complex
topic that involves considerations of the special characteristics of
software in the context of the underlying intellectual property rights,
including copyright, trademark, and trade secrets, as well as
traditional contract law, including the Uniform Commercial Code
SYSTEM SOFTWARE OVERVIEW
• System software consists of programs that manage and support a
computer system and its information processing activities. We can
group system software into two major categories :
• System Management Programs: Programs that manage the
hardware, software, network, and data resources of computer
systems during the execution of the various information processing
jobs of users.
• System Development Programs. Programs that help users develop
information system programs and procedures and prepare user
programs for computer processing
 OPERATING SYSTEMS
• is an integrated system of programs that manages the operations of the
CPU, controls the input/output and storage resources and activities of the
computer system, and provides various support services as the computer
executes the application programs of users.
• FUNCTIONS:
• The user interface is the part of the operating system that allows you to
communicate with it so you can load programs, access files, and
accomplish other tasks. Three main types of user interfaces
• are the command-driven,
• menu-driven ,
• graphical user interfaces .
The basic functions of an operating system
• User Interface: End User/System and Network Communications
• Resource Management: Managing the Use of Hardware Resources
• Task Management: Managing the Accomplishment of Tasks
• File Management: Managing Data and Program Files
• Utilities and Other Functions: Providing a Variety of Support Services
Open-Source Software
• The concept of open-source software (OSS) is growing far beyond
the Linux operating system. The basic idea behind open source is very
simple: When programmers can read, redistribute, and modify the
source code for a piece of software, the software evolves. People
improve it, people adapt it, people fix bugs.
open-source licensing is defined by the
following characteristics:
• The license must not be specific to a product
• The program must include source code and must allow distribution in
source code, as well as compiled form.
• The license must not discriminate against any person or group of
persons.
• The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the
program in a specific field of endeavor.
• The program must include source code and must allow distribution in
source code, as well as compiled form.
PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES
• A programming language allows a programmer to develop the
sets of instructions that constitute a computer program.
• Machine languages (or second-generation languages ) are the
most basic level of programming languages
• Assembler languages (or second-generation languages ) are the
next level of programming languages.
• High-level languages (or third-generation languages ) use
instructions, which are called statements , that include brief
statements or arithmetic expressions.
CONTI……
• fourth-generation language describes a variety of programming
languages that are more nonprocedural and conversational than
prior languages.
• Natural languages are sometimes considered fifth-generation
languages (5GLs) and are very close to English or other human
languages.
• Object-oriented languages like Visual Basic, C11, and Java are also
considered fifth-generation languages and have become major tools
of software development.
WEB AND INTERNET LANGUAGES
AND SERVICES
• HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) is a page description language
that creates hypertext or hypermedia documents. HTML inserts
control codes within a document at points you can specify that create
links ( hyperlinks ) to other parts of the document or to other
documents anywhere on the World Wide Web.
• XML (eXtensible Markup Language) is not a Web page format
description language like HTML. Instead, XML describes the contents
of Web pages (including business documents designed for use on the
Web) by applying identifying tags or contextual labels to the data in
Web documents
• Java and .NET
• Java is an object-oriented programming language
created by Sun Microsystems that has revolutionized the
programming of applications for the Web, as well as
corporate intranets and extranets

• Microsoft’s .NET is a collection of programming support

for what are known as Web services , the ability to use the
Web rather than your own computer for various services
PROGRAMMING SOFTWARE
• Language Translator Programs: Computer programs consist of sets of
instructions written in programming languages that must be
translated by a language translator into the computer’s own
machine language before they can be processed, or executed, by the
CPU
• Programming Tools
• programming editors
• debuggers