the.com/software
Pure thought made executable — the only product that ships broken and calls it a feature.
means The coded programs, instructions, and data that tell a computer what to do, as opposed to the physical machinery that runs them.
from A compound of 'soft' and 'ware,' built as the natural twin of 'hardware' — that older word for tools and metal goods, where '-ware' means 'manufactured articles' (the same '-ware' in earthenware, silverware, and tableware). When computers split into the physical machine and the intangible instructions running on it, English reached for the opposite of 'hard' to name the part you couldn't touch. The term took hold among engineers and mathematicians in the mid-20th century; the statistician John Tukey is often credited with putting it into print, though the coinage was likely floating in the air as the field itself took shape.
- first program
- Ada Lovelace wrote one in 1843, pre-computer
- bug origin
- A real moth jammed a 1947 Harvard relay
- eats world
- Code now runs cars, banks, and bombs
- never finished
- Most software ships with known unfixed defects
- copy cost
- Infinite duplicates for essentially zero dollars
microsoft windows — operating system with 70% global market share since 1985
linux kernel — open-source os powering 96.3% of top 1 million servers
ios — apple's operating system running on 1.2 billion active devices
google android — mobile os with 70% global smartphone market share