Overview

In this tutorial, we will learn about different types of Computer Software. Computer software can be divided into many categories. However, we will restrict the discussion to three major categories here.

Types of Computer Software

The three major types of software are:

• System Software
• Application Software
• Programming Languages

System Software

System software programs manage the hardware of the computer. The system software has direct access to the hardware. For example operating systems like Windows, Linux, etc, and system utilities like system drivers.

Application Software

Application software consists of software applications that are useful to the users. Application software is dependent on System software.

These can be divided into:

• General-purpose software
• Application-specific software

General-purpose software can be used for any purpose and for any application. For example, MS Office, OpenOffice, RDBMS like Oracle, MySQL, Application servers like JBoss, etc.

Application-specific software can only be used for a specific purpose. For example, a Banking application developed for a specific bank.

Programming Languages

Programming languages are used to write code, build, test, and debug software applications. For example, C, C++, Java, etc.