Michael Poole <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Today the "software" comprising the carefully planned interpretive > routines, compilers, and other aspects of automative programming are > at least as important to the modern electronic calculator as its > "hardware" of tubes, transistors, wires, tapes and the like. > [ from http://www.maa.org/mathland/mathtrek_7_31_00.html ] > > Note the "carefully planned _interpretive_ (etc)" and "aspects of > automative programming" parts of Tukey's definition. At least in that > early, contrasted-with-hardware meaning, software was definitely not a > general term for information, but a name for the instructions that > produced function and results from a computer. Is there some earlier > use of the word that is broader?
Software seems to have been created for those cases when the then-popular 'stored program' was inadequate. I think the contrast with hardware dominates the list of examples in the article. Anyway, for this case, note the 'other aspects' part - is a specification an aspect of programming? I think so. I suspect the context of the article itself makes this more obvious and motivated my post to this list on 2003-03-22 about the above article, but I no longer have access to JStor to check it. Regards, -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only: see http://people.debian.org/~mjr/ Please follow http://www.uk.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
