CLASSIFICATION

OF SOFTWARE
PRASENJIT HAZRA
ASHOKA 4B
ROLL NO-39
SOFTWARE :-
• The programs – the sets of instructions – that determine
how the computer behaves.

• Types of Software :-
I. System Software
II. Application Software
OPERATING SYSTEM:-
The operating system gives the user an ‘environment’ to run there programs in. It is not intended as
the actual program itself (you can’t type a letter with only windows xp installed). The job of the
operating system is to allow more generic programs such as word, excel, etc to be able to run on
different pieces of hardware. There are different operating systems available such as MacOSX,
Windows 98/2000/XP/Vista, Linux Redhat/Susie/Ubuntu etc. Software will normally be written to
run on only one operating system (or family such as windows compatible) and will also often have
system requirements of specific hardware. 
 A computer system has many resources (hardware and software), which may be
required to complete a task. The commonly required resources are input/output
devices, memory, file storage space, CPU, etc. The operating system acts as a
manager of the above resources and allocates them to specific programs and users,
whenever necessary to perform a particular task. Therefore the operating system is
the resource manager i.e. it can manage the resource of a computer system
internally. The resources are processor, memory, files, and I/O devices. In simple
terms, an operating system is an interface between the computer user and the
machine.
Library Programs :-
Library programs are a way of sharing common bits of program so that they do not need to be re-written for
each piece of software. A classic example of this is how to use the mouse. You don’t want to have to include
mouse routines in word, etc when they will be generic shared bits of code. In windows you can often spot
library programs by their extension .dll (dynamic link library).
Utility Programs:-
Utility programs are normally small little programs which will help out with the running of your computer
(making zip files, etc). But probably aren’t the reason you use the computer. They are not functional in the
way word and excel are, more of handy addons. Many actually come included in the operating system such
as defrag.
Language Translators:-
Language translator is a generic term intended to cover getting from programs written in a specific
programming language to the actual machine code. Even assembler needs to be translated. Depending on
how the assembler works it will fit in to one of three categories
i. Assembler
ii. Compiler
iii. Interpreter
Assemblers :-
You have had a good look at assembler when working with machine code. In one of your homework's you
even wrote a little of your own assembler language. Assemblers are about as basic as you can get for
programming languages. They simply translate line for line the mnemonic op-code and decimal operand
into binary ready for the processor.
Compiler :-
There are several examples of compilers C being one of the most prominent. A compiler will take a
program written in a high level programming language and by looking at the code as a whole it will
convert it into machine code. This process normally requires several passes to ‘optimise’ the code and can
take some time. You do not want to compile programs every time you run them so this is most suitable for
programs that will not change.
Interpreter :-
Java is often called an interpreter (which it nearly is), php is a true interpreted language. An interpreted
language is a higher level language so it cannot simply be assembled into machine code. Instead it is
translated ‘on the fly’ into machine code, chunk by chunk. This is relatively efficient for programs which
change as you go. The downside is no machine code is stored so the process needs to be run every time. It
is not very good for large programs such as word. 
Applications Software :-
Programs that do the ‘real’ work for users. Perform specific
tasks The software may be designed specifically for one
particular company Software purchased ‘off the shelf’
Examples :-Order entry, making salary sheet etc.
Application Software three types
• General Purpose Software
• Special purpose Software
• Bespoke Software
General Purpose Software
All common application packages Word Processing, Desktop
Publishing, Spreadsheet, Database, Computer-Aided Design (CAD)
and Presentation packages Sold as a package, including a CD
containing the software and manuals
Generic and Special Purpose Software
Generic – can do many different tasks Word processing,
spreadsheet and database software Special Purpose – designed to
do one particular task Income tax return program, Accounting
package Web browser.
  Bespoke or off-the-shelf
Bespoke Software Specially written, tailor-made or commissioned
software Advantages Designed to the exact specifications of the
user Can be written to run on specific hardware Software can be
integrated with existing software