Brief Introduction to Software Development Software consists of programming instructions and

data that tell

In 1843 Babbage's friend mathematician Ada the computer how to execute various tasks. These
Lovelace translated a French paper about the days, instructions are generally written in a higher-
Analytical Engine and, in her own annotations, level language, which is easier to use for human
published how it could perform a sequence of programmers, and then converted into low-level
calculations, the first computer program. The machine code that the computer can directly
Analytical Engine, however, was never completed. understand.

Colossus, 1944 The first piece of software was written by computer

Colossus is thus regarded as the world's first scientist Tom Kilburn on June 21, 1948. Kilburn
programmable, electronic, digital computer, and his colleague Freddie Williams had built one of
although it was programmed by switches and plugs the earliest computers, the Manchester Small-
and not by a stored program. ... The prototype, Scale Experimental Machine (also known as the
Colossus Mark 1, was shown to be working in “Baby”). The SSEM was programmed to perform
December 1943 and was in use at Bletchley Park mathematical calculations using machine code
by early 1944 instructions.

Von Neumann Architecture refers to a design For decades after this ground-breaking event,
model for computers where the processing unit, computers were programmed with punch cards in
memory, and input- output devices are which holes denoted specific machine code
interconnected through a single, central system instructions. Fortran, one of the very first higher-
bus. This architecture was first proposed by John level programming languages, was originally
von Neumann, a Hungarian- American published in 1957. The next year, statistician John
mathematician and physicist, in the mid-20th Tukey coined the word “software” in an article
century. about computer programming. Other pioneering
programming languages like Fortran, Cobol,
ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and BASIC,
Computer) was the first programmable, general Pascal and C arrived over the next two decades.
purpose digital computer, 1946
The Personal Computing Era
Fortran In the 1970s and 1980s, software hit the big time
• The first successful programming language. with the arrival of personal computers. Apple
• FORmula TRAnslation – designed by John released the Apple II, its revolutionary product, to
Backus in 1956. the public in April 1977. VisiCalc, the first
• The implementation of this language took 18 spreadsheet software for personal computing, was
years to finish. wildly popular and known as the Apple II’s killer
– But, the resulting compiler remained to be the app. The software was written in specialized
best optimizing compiler for many years. assembly language and
• FORTRAN-I to FORTARN-IV, FORTRAN-66, appeared in 1979.
FORTRAN-77, FORTRAN-90, FORTRAN-95.
Other companies like IBM soon entered the market
My first computer was 80286 IBM PC Compatible with computers such as the IBM PC, which first
in 1992 launched in 1981. The next year, Time magazine
selected the personal computer as its Man of the
I regard the late 1950s as a period essential to Year. Again, software for productivity and business
the era of computing. At that time, large computers dominated these early stages of personal
became available to research institutions and computing. Many significant software applications,
universities. Computers were then used primarily in including AutoCAD, Microsoft Word and Microsoft
engineering and the natural sciences, but they Excel, were released in the mid-1980s.
soon became indispensable in business, too. - N.
Wirth Open-source software, another major innovation in
the history of software development, first entered
Microcomputers first appeared on the market in the mainstream in the 1990s, driven mostly by the
1975 (Commodore, Tandy, and Apple; much later, use of the internet. The Linux kernel, which
IBM entered the market). Before this, there was the became the basis for the open-source Linux
Altair. operating system, was released in 1991. Interest in
open- source software spiked in the late 1990s,
What Is Software? after the 1998 publication of the source code for the
Simply put, software is the interface between Netscape Navigator browser, mainly written in C
computer systems and the humans who use them. and C++. Also noteworthy is the release of Java by
Sun Microsystems in 1995.
Software Development Today
Today, software has become ubiquitous, even in
places that you might not expect it, from crock pots Software and Hardware Applications
to nuclear submarines. Some programming
languages, like C and Cobol, have survived the test
of time and are still in use. Other languages, such
as Java and Python, are somewhat younger and
have been used in countless software development
projects. Still others, such as Apple’s Swift
programming language for iOS or Go Open source,
are relatively new and exciting.

Software Engineering
The term programming was commonly used
through the mid-1960s, and referred essentially to
the task of coding a computer. The term software
engineering—referring to the highly disciplined,
systematic approach to software development and
maintenance—came into existence after a NATO-
sponsored conference in 1968. At that conference,
the difficulties and pitfalls of designing complex
systems were explored in depth, and a search for
solutions began that concentrated on better
methodologies and tools. The most prominent of
these tools were languages reflecting procedural,
modular, and object-oriented styles of
programming.

Software History
Just as the fields of software and hardware
development have evolved, the field of software
history has likewise matured. At first, the history of
software was exclusively focused on technology.
Later, there were historical explorations of the
software industry and professions. Today the
emphasis is on applications and the societal
changes resulting from software. - Martin
Campbell-Kelly

Software has not yet passed though comparably

long trajectories. For example, in terms of process,
we have evolved from a craft discipline to software
engineering, but not much beyond. We have
evolved from bespoke software programs to
software products, but, again, not much beyond.
These trajectories lack enough data points to
clearly indicate where we are headed. Indeed,
there is a sense that software is still turbulent and
evolving.
- Martin Campbell-Kelly