Increasing the productivity, accountability, and credibility of the workforce is always been the concern of an organization. That’s the reason, the usage of the software have increased to meet and fulfill all the expectations on work process. And accordingly, different software are being developed to make the computer related activities more effective by fulfilling the basic requirements.
A software is basically divided into two categories, that are System Software & Application Software. But to make the processing and performance of a computer more effective, Utility Software are being used by many users as a supportive tool to system software. To make the understanding more clear about the software, we have discussed it below in detail.
I. System Software
System software is a set of integrated programs which work in order to improve the processing speed of the different applications and hardware, present in a computer system. There are different types of system software like a printer driver, hard disk analyzer, utility programmer that individually performs and allows the user to experience the best performance.
Some important types of system software with their functions are as follows:
- Operating System
It works as a communication device with all the hardware devices and creates a platform between the user and the hardware. Some of the important tasks handled by the operating system includes proper system accessibility, creation, and execution of programs, detection of errors and its responsiveness, management of memory/processor/information, etc. - Compiler, Assembler & Interpreter
A compiler works as a translator and translate the High-Level Language (HLL) into machine language, and displays the error message at the end of executing a program completely. The example of the compiler is GNU Compiler Collection, Free Pascal, Microsoft Visual Studio, etc.
Assembler is a program that converts an assembly language into machine language that makes an understanding process easy for the end-user. Microsoft Macro Assembler, GNU Assembler, Turbo Assembler are some examples of assembler software.
An interpreter is that program that does the translation till the time no error appears. It stops the translation at run-time if any errors appear and translates each and every instruction individually. Examples of the interpreter are Python, LISP, Ocamle, etc.
II. Application software
Application software is a set of programs that helps an end-user to deal with a specific kind of task on daily basis. Application software is a different category that are Packaged software, Custom software, Freeware, Shareware, Public domain. As per the requirements of the user, application software can be used and they are user-friendly. There are many application software available for specific tasks like a spreadsheet, enterprise software, presentation software, multimedia software, information software, etc.
Here are some common examples of application software :
- Word Processing Software
It is often called as word processor where a user can create or update a document like reports, newsletters, web pages. Such documents can be in the form of text or images and with different available features a professional look can be given to those documents. Examples are MS Word, Notepad. - Database Software
It can also be called as DBMS that stands for database management system. Database software is mainly used for the storage of database files & records where a user can modify, extract, search the information present in the form of structured field or tables. It can easily be maintained with the help of database software. Examples are Microsoft Access, Oracle Database, MySQL.