Computer Software Video Lecture - IT & Software

I
in this modern world of technology
computers have become an essential part
of life this complex looking device may
not be a child's play but it is indeed
of fascinating and challenging device
for the human mind just have an access
to the computer is not sufficient every
individual who works on it has to put in
certain amount of effort to achieve the
end results
you
you
these people are engaged in the activity
called software development
but what is meant by software and why
does a computer mood software
if we have a simple equipment which is
meant to do only a few jobs then for its
operations will need very few
instructions
however when machine or device does mean
jobs then the situation is quite
different we need details and accurate
instructions for its operations to cite
an example we have taken a lake and here
is an operation charge as the name
itself indicates the operation chart
shows instructions for the operator as
to how one should make a stud pipe using
the late
the operator has to be given different
set of instructions to produce different
parts another interesting example is
that on the calculator here are a set of
instructions telling us what case to
press to compute the mean and standard
deviation for the set of numbers
different instructions are required for
different computations thus there are
two components involved in doing a job
on a general-purpose machine first is
the physical equipment itself and
secondly is the set of instructions to
be followed for doing the job the
physical equipment is called hardware
and the instructions are called software
computer being a general-purpose machine
needs software in addition to hardware
to solve a problem the software is also
known as computer program there is one
important difference between the
instructions per computer and those of a
late in the case of a late the
instructions are given for the human
being whereas in the case of a computer
the instructions are given to the
machine itself to be executed
automatically
as the program is to be understood by
the computer it is written in a language
which is extremely precise it is called
machine language computer hardware is
designed to deal with arm off states of
its components hence the machine
language instructions are made of
strings of zeros and ones this is a
small machine language program that adds
two numbers in executing an instruction
different components of the computer
participate
look at what happens when the following
instructions are processed when its turn
comes a copy of this instruction is
transferred into instruction register
then it gets split into its components
and it's decoded
the instruction says add the contents of
memory location 11 to the contents of
accumulator and store the results in the
accumulator accordingly the contents of
location 11 get transferred to
arithmetic and logic unit along the
contents of accumulator
the earth with unit ABS the two numbers
and the result is transferred to the
accumulator
the machine language differs from
computer to computer it is extremely
difficult for programmers to route the
programs in machine language it requires
all the instructions to be written in
zeros and ones which makes it very
difficult for programmers to read even
if there is the smallest mistake made in
writing the program it becomes very
difficult to locate and correct the
mistake to overcome this difficulty the
programmers can write their instructions
using mnemonics in place of zeros and
ones the mnemonics are closed to short
english abbreviations for what the
instructions stand for therefore they
are easy to remember such instructions
are known as assembly language
instructions the programmer writes his
instructions in assembly language but
the computer can execute only machine
language instructions therefore an
assembly program has to be translated
into machine language program before
execution this translation is done by a
program known as the assembler the
assembler program is supplied by the
computer manufacturer along with the
computer
machine language to assembly language is
definitely an improvement for the
programmer still it is far from easy to
lose the assembly language first each
assemble language instruction is very
limited in its power therefore these
programs tend to be very lengthy for
even the simplest of problems second the
programmer has to know many details
about the computer itself for writing
assembly programs third there is almost
one-to-one correspondence between
assembly instructions and machine
language instructions hence the assembly
language program written for one type of
computer does not work for another type
to simplify the programming procedures
still further higher level languages
have been developed the vocabulary of
these languages is close to English and
mathematics one need not be a computer
expert to learn and use these languages
the program you are seeing is written in
a higher-level language known as basic
it accepts two numbers from the user and
prints the total here is a basic program
and a corresponding machine language
programmed by its side
the basic program is the more readable
of the two just like an assembly program
a higher-level language program tool
needs to be translated into machine
language before it can be executed this
translation is done by a program called
compiler higher-level languages are
generally independent of the features of
any specific computer model hence they
can be easily transferred from one
computer model to another hundreds of
higher languages are in existence today
each language is particularly convenient
for a certain type of task
Fortran for scientific computing COBOL
for business data processing Lisp for
artificial intelligence applications and
so on the computer is usually used by
several people
it is indeed difficult for a human
operator to carry out this task
we therefore need a computer program to
do it such a computer program is called
an operating system the operating system
is also capable of doing several other
jobs it allows a user to store his
programs in the computer for a long time
and retrieve them later
it can also maintain accounts on how
much computer time each user has
consumed
this brings us to the question as to how
a program is developed the program
development is an aerated process
consisting of several overlapping steps
first the program designer has to
understand the problem at hand
thoroughly by reading discussing and
thinking then the designer has to plan
out a procedure for solving the problem
we must not forget their the computer
can only execute the instructions of a
program blindly it cannot invent a
solution procedure by itself thirdly the
solution procedure has to be written
unambiguously in the form of a flowchart
or in the form of a pseudocode the
pseudocode and flowchart are only
intermediate steps in the program
development process they do not
constitute the program itself they only
help to document the program logic
the next step is to choose a program
language and convert the flowchart or
pseudo code into a program lastly the
program has to be entered into the
computer and thoroughly tested to make
sure that it does not have any errors or
bugs this is called debugging debugging
is an important phase of program
development and is very time-consuming
even a small slip in debugging can cause
heaven two people are very happy that
they have confirmed reservation tickets
for the train journey but what happens
when they arrive at the station
they are both fighting for the same
birth because the same birth number is
printed on both tickets it is not their
fault but that with the program which
printed their tickets the final phase of
programming is documentation this
consists of preparing a writer for the
users of the program and the other
programmers who are likely to modify it
in the future
program development is an expensive
process requiring considerable expertise
and time for some of the common problems
common software companies develop and
sell programs which can be used by a
variety of users such general purpose
programs are called packages for IBM
pc-compatible computers alone some
40,000 packages are reported to be
selling in the market the field of
software offers hundreds of thousands of
job opportunities today the number of
people working in the software area is
much higher than those in the hardware
sector the cost of software development
is on the increase where is the cost of
hardware is on the decline this is
because the software requirements are
growing rapidly whereas the availability
of software experts is not keeping pace
therefore with the mirror acquisition of
hardware our problems do not get solved
proper choice of language or package
careful development of bug free software
an elusive documentation of the system
are of utmost importance for
problem-solving by computers
by travelpod member