Type of Software, Definition, type & Examples

Software & its type

Introduction

Welcome to our journey into the world of software! In today's digital age, software is everywhere, powering our computers, phones, and more. But understanding it all can be tricky. This blog aims to make it easier by breaking down the basics. We'll learn about two main types of software: system and application. We'll also explore tools like compilers, assemblers, and interpreters. And we won't forget about operating systems, the software that makes our devices work. Plus, we'll discover how characters are coded with ASCII, Unicode, and ISCII. Ready to dive in? Let's explore software together!

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What is Software

Software is the set of instructions to make computer work in the way we like. Software refers to a collection of instructions, data, or programs that are utilized to operate computers and carry out specific tasks. Software is basically designed to solve any task. Computer system is whole operated and handled by software, software’s like Word, Excel, Paintbrush, Dos, Window’s etc.  While hardware can be physically touched, software is a more abstract term used to describe applications. Although we can observe software in action, it remains intangible and cannot be physically touched. In essence, software can be considered as the adaptable component of a computer system, while hardware represents the unchanging aspect.

Software & its Categories

Type of Software

Application Software

What are Application software

Application programs are programs created by users to carry out specific tasks. They are designed for unique functions and are typically used for the same tasks repeatedly. Many of these application programs are available for purchase as software packages. These packages can be customized slightly to meet individual needs and system requirements. Standard software packages for applications like Payroll, Financial Accounting, Inventory Control, and billing are readily available. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) packages, such as BAAN, PeopleSoft, and Oracle Financials, play a significant role in enhancing the efficiency of large-scale industries and organizations by improving the quality of Administration, Production, and Planning in inventory management. Application software is basically designed according to need for requirement. Application software can be developed using a computer language. These are developed in high- level languages An application can be self-contained or a group of programs. These can further classified into

General purpose

Specific Purpose

General Purpose software

These are versatile software applications that cater to the requirements of numerous individuals, encompassing tasks like composing documents (word processing), manipulating numerical data (spreadsheets), and managing information (database).These are further classified into

Personal Productive software Eg:-Word/Excel

Multimedia software:-Powerpoint/photoshop

Internet software:-web browser/email etc

Specific purpose s/w(Custom s/w)

Custom software is typically tailored for a specific industry or department within a company, such as a program for tracking garment production or managing a restaurant or Library or Educational institutes and many more. Vertical software, designed for specific job functions, tends to be expensive because of the limited market size.

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System Software

What are System software

software’s which are used to operate whole computer system is known as system software. System software is comprised of a set of programs that enable users to effectively utilize computers. System software is a collection of programs, which are designed to operate control and extend the processing capability of the computer system. These programs are responsible for carrying out essential functions, such as organizing and maintaining data files, translating programs written in different languages into a format that can be executed by the hardware, scheduling jobs, and providing assistance in various other aspects of computer operations. so we can say software which are used to operate whole computer system is known as system software.

They can be classified into

1)Operating System

2)Device Drivers

3)Language Translators

4)Utility Programs

Operating Systems

An operating system (OS) is a crucial software component that acts as an intermediary between computer hardware and user applications. OS software applications come pre-installed in the computer system, Essentially, they serve as a bridge between the user's software and the computer, functioning as a manager overseeing the computer's operations. It manages computer’s memory, processes  and all the other software and hardware. It allows you to communicate with the computer (act as a translator). It acts as an intermediary between computer hardware and user applications Additionally, editors and other tools aid in generating and editing data on the computer. Various operating systems, including Windows 11, Sun Solaris, Mac OS, and Linux, are just a few examples. A computer is useless without an operating system.

What is Operating System

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Functions of operating system

Function of Operation system

Some key functions of an operating system: 1. Process Management The OS oversees the execution of processes, managing the allocation of CPU time, memory, and other resources. It creates, terminates, and schedules processes to enable multitasking and ensure fair resource utilization. 2. Memory Management OS allocates and deallocates memory space for processes, ensuring efficient utilization and preventing conflicts. It facilitates virtual memory, allowing programs to use more memory than physically available by swapping data between RAM and storage. 3. File System Management The OS organizes and controls access to files and directories on storage devices. It provides file permissions, hierarchical structure, and manages file storage to ensure data integrity and security. 4. Device Management The OS communicates with hardware devices such as printers, keyboards, and disk drives, coordinating their operations. It provides device drivers to abstract hardware complexities and enable standard interfaces for applications. 5. Security and Protection OS implements security measures to protect the system and user data from unauthorized access. It enforces user authentication, access controls, and encryption to safeguard sensitive information. 6. User Interface The OS provides a user interface, which can be command-line or graphical, allowing users to interact with the system and applications. It facilitates communication between the user and the computer, making it more user-friendly. 7. Networking OS manages network connections, protocols, and communication between devices in a network. It enables the computer to access resources on a local network or the internet. 8. Error Handling The OS detects and manages errors that may occur during the operation of the system. It provides error messages, logs, and recovery mechanisms to ensure system stability. 9. Resource Allocation and Scheduling The OS allocates resources efficiently, balancing the needs of different processes and users. It implements scheduling algorithms to determine the order in which processes receive CPU time. In summary, an operating system plays a critical role in managing and optimizing computer resources, providing a stable and secure environment for users and applications to run efficiently.

Utility program

Utility program is a system software that  allows a user to analyze, configure and  Maintain the computer. Utilities are programs, which performs a specific function. It performs a specific task related to the management of computer. Utilities are part of system programs. Utility programs are generally supplied by the computer manufacturer and also available for the call up by the operating system. This software is designed to perform any task with operating system. Most utility software are inbuilt like scandisk, compiler, interpreter etc. We can increase the speed of computer and take maintenance care through utility software. Utility program related to software maintenance, unnecessary files are created by system and they are deleted by utility program. Example: -. Antivirus.

Device Driver

A device driver is a specialized software component that facilitates communication between an operating system and a specific hardware device. Its primary purpose is to act as an interface, enabling the OS to interact with and control the functionalities of hardware components such as printers, graphics cards, or storage devices.

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Application Software and its Types

Word processor

Application software word processer

Word processing software is utilized for text manipulation and basic design application on pages. Consider the various types of documents that are created and shared within a school setting, such as circulars, attendance records, notices, report cards, and admission forms.

Spreadsheet

A spreadsheet is a tool, either in the form of a physical paper or a computer program, that is utilized for accounting and data recording purposes. It employs rows and columns to organize and input information. Microsoft Excel, a well-known spreadsheet program, allows users to enter data into columns.

SpreadSheet

Presentation software

The main function of this tool is to exhibit information in a slide show format. It commonly comprises a text editor, an image viewer, and a slide show system.

Presentation software

DBMS Software

The database management system (DBMS) is responsible for handling incoming data, arranging it in an organized manner, and offering methods for users or other programs to modify or extract the data. Various examples of DBMS include MySQL, PostgreSQL, Microsoft Access, SQL Server, File Maker, Oracle, RDBMS, dBASE, Clipper, and Fox Pro.

DBMS Software

DTP Software

DTP software

The main purpose of DTP software is to create visual communications, including brochures, business cards, greeting cards, web pages, posters, and other materials, for professional or personal printing online or on a screen. some examples are Photoshop , Coral Illustrator

Gaming Software

Gaming software

software used to develop computer games ex Unity Unreal Engine GDevelop

Educational Software

software used for education purpose ex Byjus Online Education

Communication Software

Communication software

software used for communication purpose ex Google Meet Whatsapp

Business & ERP Software

Business & ERP software

software used for business purpose ex Tally Tally ERP Custom Made software

Graphics & Multimedia Software

Multimedia software

Software used for multimedia purpose ex Adobe Premier DJ Software Sound Forge

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Language Translators & Converters

The translator is a software program that serves as a mediator between the user's source code and the machine. It enables the conversion of source code written in one language into another language. By translating all inputs into machine language, which is comprehensible to the computer, the translator allows a digital computer to accept both digits and alphabets as input.

Assemblers

The Assembler software is utilized to transform assembly language source code into machine language. It employs mnemonic codes to convert the mnemonic operation codes into their corresponding machine language equivalents. Additionally, it assigns machine addresses to symbolic labels. However, presently this software is no longer utilized.

Working of Assemblers

A programmer develops a program by utilizing a series of instructions. This sequence of assembler instructions, referred to as the source code or source program, is subsequently provided to the assembler program upon its initiation. The assembler program then converts the source code into machine language. The resulting output from the assembler program is known as the object code or object program.

working of Assemblers

Compilers

A compiler is program’s that reads a program and translate it into machine code. Through this software, we convert a high level language into machine language. Today most programming languages used compiler. Compiler reads a whole program at a time. It occupies less space of memory and debugging process is also very fast (check and analysis). Compiler changes source code (high-  level language) to object code which that  can be executed by a machine.

Working of Compiler:

Program syntax is validated. The entire program is checked simultaneously. The primary objective of compiling source code is to produce an executable program. Examples of compiler based language: C, C++, JAVA

How Compiler Works

Interpreters

An interpreter functions like a compiler. It takes one statement of program at a time and translates into machine code and run it then comes the turn of second statement and this process continues until the end of the program.

It executes instructions written in a programming language but do not produces the executable file Through this software we convert high level language to machine language. This software occupies more space of memory and debugging process is also very slow. Interpreter is oldest translator. Advance form of translator is compiler.

How Interpreter Works

Difference between Interpreter & Compiler 

	Compiler	Interpreter
1	It compiles a whole program at a time.	Interpreter read a single line at a time.
2	Its debugging process is fast	Its debugging process is slow
3	It shows all errors at a time.	It shows errors one by one
4	It occupies less space of memory	It occupies more space of memory
5	Compiler reads source code every time before execution.	Interpreter reads source code only one time at the beginning.
6	If any change is made in program it will not read the program.	If we change anything in your program then it will read the program.

Ascii

American Standard Code for Information Interchange, commonly known as ASCII, is a character encoding standard utilized in computers and other devices to handle text files. It is a subset of Unicode and comprises a character set consisting of 128 symbols. This set encompasses uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, punctuation marks, special characters, and control characters. Each symbol within the character set can be represented by a Decimal value ranging from 0 to 127.

Ascii -7-128 chracters

Ascii- 8-256 Chracters

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Unicode

Unicode, an internationally recognized encoding standard, facilitates the representation of individual characters in diverse text files, web pages, and documents.

ASCII was initially intended for basic English characters, while Unicode was developed to encompass characters from all languages across the globe. The standard ASCII character set is limited to 128 characters, whereas Unicode has the capability to support roughly 1,000,000 characters. Moreover, ASCII uses one byte to represent each character, while Unicode can utilize up to 4 bytes for each character.

There are several different types of Unicode encodings available, with UTF-8 and UTF-16 being the most prevalent. UTF-8 has become the standard character encoding used on the Web and is also the default encoding used by many software programs. While UTF-8 can accommodate up to four bytes per character, it would be inefficient to allocate four bytes for frequently used characters. As a result, UTF-8 utilizes only one byte to represent common English characters. European (Latin), Hebrew, and Arabic characters are represented with two bytes, while Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and other Asian characters require three bytes. Additional Unicode characters can be represented with four bytes.

  

ISCII

The term ISCII represents Indian Script Code for Information Interchange, which was established as a standard by the Bureau of Indian Standards (IS13194:1991) in the year 1991. ISCII operates as an 8-bit standard, conforming to the ASCII standard for the lower 128 characters (0-127). The higher 128 characters (128-255) are specifically allocated for encoding characters from various Indian scripts. Unicode has largely preserved the ISCII encoding strategy within their own encoding system. As a result, texts encoded in ISCII-1991 can be seamlessly converted to Unicode values and vice versa, ensuring that no information is lost during the conversion process.

conclusion

In conclusion , this blog cover a brief description of following topics

Software, Type of Software, system & Application software, compilers, assemblers, interpreters, operating System & its function, ASCII, Unicode, ISCII.

In summary, I can say that these topics are related to Fundamental of Computer and very helpful for those who pursuing BCA,PGDCA, DCA ,'O' Level Courses from different universities 

I hope this blog helps you a lot Happy learning....

Frequently Asked Question(FAQ)

What is Software ?

Software refers to a collection of instructions, data, or programs that are utilized to operate computers and carry out specific tasks.

What is Operating System ?

An operating system (OS) is a crucial software component that acts as an intermediary between computer hardware and user applications.

What are Language Translaters or converters ?

The translator is a software program that serves as a mediator between the user's source code and the machine.

What are Assembler ?

The Assembler software is utilized to transform assembly language source code into machine language.

What are Compilers ?

A compiler is program’s that reads a program and translate it into machine code.

What are Interpreter ?

It executes instructions written in a programming language but do not produces the executable file .

What are Ascii ?

It is a character encoding standard utilized in computers and other devices to handle text files. .

What are Unicode ?

Unicode was developed to encompass characters from all languages across the globe.

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