3 Main categories of software:
Systems software
-Operating system
-Device drivers
-Firmware
-Servers
-Utilities
-Interfaces
Development software
(Programming languages and utilities)
-Applications
An operating system, sometimes called a platform, is a collection of programs that control the hardware in a computer or device.
At the heart of the operating system is the Kernel which looks after the most low-level hardware operations.
-Multi-tasking allows the computer to make best use of the CPU.
The CPU works much faster than RAM and the other components of the computer.
White the CPU waits for the other actions to complete, e.g. loading data to RAM, it works on other tasks.
-Running: The CPU is currently dealing with this process and others must wait.
-Runnable: These are ready to go and just need the running program to finish or be interrupted to get the CPU's attention so they can run.
-Waiting: These processes are waiting to get into the queue and become runnable.
User interface
The user interface is how the user interacts with the system.
This can be provided as part of the operating system or ban be a separate program running on top of the operating system.
-Windows: A powerful multi- tasking operating system from Microsoft. It provides a graphical user interface (GUI) that enables all applications running under windows to look similar.
Compilers translate the high-level code used by the programmer into the machine instructions required by the computer.
Interpreters translate the high level code into code but they translate the code one line at a time.
Assemblers are used to translate assembly language programs into machine instructions.
Linkers are used to connect together sub programs to create larger programs.
Applications are programs that do real world jobs.
There is huge amount of apps to do lots of jobs on different devices.
1. Explain how an IDLE can help a programmer when producing source code [2 marks]
An IDLE can help a programmer by pointing out errors and showing if they have not closed their coding or any Syntax errors.
2. Little Johnny is a systems manager of a large insurance company.
He is choosing general purpose office software for the staff to use.
He is considering installing open source software.
(a) State what is meant by open source software [2 marks]
Open source software's source codes are free for anyone to use and improve and make any toggles with the software. They could improve it and give out the source code for others to use and make their own toggles with the open software and could claim it as theirs like the MAC Operating system which was made by a open source software (Linux)
(b)
