Software Characteristics

(1). Software is developed or engineered, it is not manufactured:-- Unlike hardware,software is logical rather than physical.It has to be designed well before producing it. In spite of availability of many automated software development tools, it is the skill of the individual, creativity of the developers and proper management by the project manager that counts for a good software product.

(2). Software does not "wear out":--As time progresses, the hardware components start deteriorating-they are subjected to environmental maladies such as dust, vibration, temperature etc. and at some point of time they tend to breakdown. The defected components can then be traced and replaced.But, software is not susceptible to the environmental changes. SDo, it does not wear out. The software works exactly the same way even after years it was first developed unless any charges are inttoduced to it.The changes in the software may occur due to the changes in the requirements.And these changes may introduce some defects in it thus, deteriorating the quality of software,So, software need to maintained properly.

(3). Most software is custom-built,rather than being assembled from existing components:--Most of the engineered products are first designed before they are manufactured, Designing includes identifying various components for the product before they are actually assembled. Here several people can work independently on these components thus making the manufacturing system highly flexible. In software, breading a program into modules is difficult task , since each module is highly interlinked with other modules. Further, it requires lot of skill to integrate different modules into one.Now a days the term component is widely used in software industry where object oriented system is in use.

What is Software

Computer software or just software, is a collection of computer programs and related data that provides the instructions for telling a computer what to do and how to do it. Software refers to one or more computer programs and data held in the storage of the computer for some purposes. In other words, software is a set of programs, procedures, algorithms and its documentation concerned with the operation of a data processing system. Program software performs the function of the program it implements, either by directly providing instructions to the computer hardware or by serving as input to another piece of software. The term was coined to contrast to the old term hardware (meaning physical devices). In contrast to hardware, software "cannot be touched". Software is also sometimes used in a more narrow sense, meaning application software only. Sometimes the term includes data that has not traditionally been associated with computers, such as film, tapes, and records.