Introduction to Software

The software industry is evolving day by day too quickly and it has become a huge area of computer science. Every electronic device runs on a software platform, by which one can interact with the electronic device. The broad area of computer science has evolved the new era of computer software.

If we say that Software is just a collection of programs, it is not enough to define the term “Software”. Actually, the definition of the software is broader than this, it is a time taking process and several phases are included in it. Software is a package of several programs, documentation, configuration files, user manual, etc. that instructs the computer to do specific work. System documentation describes the structure and working of the software, whereas User documentation describes how to use the software product. The software lets the user interact with the hardware and in essence, a user makes use of software to interact with the hardware.

According to Wikipedia.org “Computer software, or simply software, is a collection of data or computer instructions that tell the computer how to work. Computer software includes computer programs, libraries and related non-executable data, such as online documentation or digital media.”

The software can be developed for the individual user, who wants a specific type of the software which fulfills that user needs e.g. a user pays the developer to make a specific software product which calculates heartbeat and also tells that the food user is taking is good or bad for health, this is a specific kind of software which can be used for an individual user and the user can customize the software product according to their needs and any modification can be made directly by the actual software developer. Also, the software can be developed for the general market that is it fulfills the general market needs e.g. the product of Adobe Corporation is Adobe Photoshop which is used for professional photo editing and graphic designing almost every professional photo editor, the graphic designer uses Photoshop for photo manipulation in the software market is a popular software product.