Software Development

EM108 - Software Development (1)

• HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE
• Hardware - All physical components a computer is made of Software - All computer programs that enable a computer to perform
• Hardware Components - CPU (brains), Memory (Internal - volatile, External - non-volatile), I/O Devices, Auxillary storage devices (USB etc), Additional Cards (Game graphic cards, multimedia processing cards)
• Software Components - Operating System (OS), Drivers (Allows OS to communicate with a hardware device), Different applications and programs
• A computer program is a set of commands to be executed by a computer in a certain order
• COMPUTER NETWORKS
• A computer network is two or more inter-connected computers
• Network Topology - Ring, Star and Bus
• Types of Networks - -LAN (connects in local area e.g. lab or building, enabled local information exchange) -WAN (connects from different locations e.g. DCU network, efficient and did not allow communications with other companies) - Internet ( interconnets different networks with computers with different OSs , growing exponentionally)

Slide 2

• Storing Information
• File extensions - Plain text (e.g. .txt – Textpad or Wordpad) - Applications (e.g. .exe – Game) - - Formatted text (e.g. .doc – Microsoft Word) - Video (e.g. .avi, .mpg – Windows Media Player) - Images (e.g. .jpg, .gif – Paint Shop Pro) - Audio (e.g. .mp3, .wav – Winamp)
• User Interfaces
• Two major types - complimenting each other (CLI - Command Line Interface, GUI - Graphical User Interface) CLI - Interaction mainly textual, commands inputted by keyboard, some find it faster, in general results are displayed in text GUI - Interaction is mainly via mouse, text inputted through keyboard and commands via menus, in general results displayed in various windows, some find it more user friendly