Category

System Software

Application
Software
Open Source
Software
Machine Language

Assembly Level
Language
High Level
Language

Compiled
Language
Interpreted
Language

Description

Purpose

Specific Examples

Software designed to
operate and control the
computer hardware

Controls the operation of a

computers equipment

-Microsoft Windows
-Mac OSX

Software that can perform a

specific set of useful tasks
for the user

Enables the user to

complete tasks such as
creating documents,
spreadsheets, databases,
publications, etc.

Software for which the

source code is available to
the general public for use in
certain ways

Typically created as a
collaborative effort in which
programmers improve upon
the code and share the
changes within the
community
Binary numbers
representing the actions a
CPU can perform

-Microsoft Word
-Microsoft PowerPoint
-Microsoft Excel
-Adobe Creative Suite
-Paint
-Notepad
-LibreOffice
-SQL-Ledger
-ClamAV
-MySQL
-Knowledge Tree

Native language directly

understood by computers
central processing unit
(CPU)
Low-level programming
language that does use
word-based commands

Commands usually
correspond directly to
machine language
instructions

Most user-friendly and

similar to English, with
words and symbols

Programs written in highlevel language can

potentially be translated into
many machine languages,
and therefore can run on
any computer with the
appropriate translator
Can translate the source
code into some intermediate
form (often called
bytecode), which is then
passed to an interpreter
which executes it
Translates either directly to
actions to perform, or for
some languages, to code in
an intermediate language
for the interpreter

Language whose
implementations are
typically compilers, and not
interpreters

Language code that is

processed within an
interpreter program

N/A

N/A

-Python
-Visual Basic
-Delphi
-Pearl

-Cobra
-Eiffel
-Modula-3

-Java
-PHP
-Ruby