Software; types and comparison.

 

So, what is software? What are the types of software?

A software is a set of instructions or data which tells the computer what to do or how to work. Computer software includes computer programs, libraries, documentation and digital media, also known as multimedia. Majority of the software is written in high-level programming. Software can be categorized into two different categories with each category also having subcategories. But the main two types of software are system and application software.

Even though, both system and application software are classified as software, they serve vastly different purposes. System software are the ones that simply touch the bare metal (hardware). While application software are the ones used by end-users to perform specific tasks. 

Application software and system software (operating systems shown here)

 What is system software?

• A system software is a piece of software that may be used for either directly controlling hardware itself or the access to the hardware. These processes do not care about why something needs to be done, they just do it. System software are the lowest level software of a computer system. These usually act as a platform for application software, as a means of interaction between the application software and hardware.
  

The system software acting as a middleman or a platform for interactions between hardware and application software.

Examples of system software are:

• Operating systems (OS)
  
• Utilities
• Hardware drivers
• Compilers
• Assemblers
• Debuggers

 

All the mainstream operating systems. Which are all an example of system software.

What about application software?

Frequently used application software.

Contrary to system software, application software are designed to perform specific tasks, typically built to serve the end-users. Application software are made with the goal to help people perform an activity. These tasks can vary quite a lot based on the type of application used. For example, VLC media player is used for playing multimedia files, while Microsoft Word is used to write documents. However, based on the type of tasks accomplished, there are two types of application software. 

    1. Basic application software: Basic applications are developed for general purpose use. These are not limited to a single purpose and may serve multiple purposes all at once. These provide a variety of functionalities to the users. Such as, a word processor could be used to either write a novel, a restaurant menu or even a poster. Examples are word processors, spreadsheets and presentation software etc.

The Microsoft office suite, a basic application software pack. Which includes word processors, spreadsheets and presentation software.

     2. Specialized application software: Specialized applications are developed with a goal to serve specialized task operations. This type of software usually execute a single task. But, since the focus is on that single task operation, it usually includes a ton of feature sets just to help accomplish that task with ease. Like, a camera application can be used to take pictures or record videos. Or a chess video game to play chess. Examples include web browsers, media players, calculators, calendars, code editors etc.

A list of Adobe products made with focus for productivity. Such as video editing, illustration, photo editing and special effects. All of these are specialized application software.

Conclusion

A computer system is heavily reliant on software as these provide instructions and data for the computer to process. The various types of applications and software work together to serve the end-users. System software focuses on building a platform as a means of communication between the hardware and application software. While, application software are more focused towards serving the user, as in accomplishing tasks or helping them accomplish tasks. Both system software and application software work really different from one another. Hence, the ability to determine the difference between these two terms are important.