Who? What? Ware?

Have you ever wondered what the difference is between software and an application? Ever been puzzled by hardware, firmware, and software? Then you’re not alone! I had to look up the exact definition of firmware just the other day. That got me thinking, what do all these different terms mean, and how do they work together? Did our nerd ancestors have a reason for all these weird names or is it chaos? Let’s break down the commonly used terms in computing!

Starting broad and moving narrower, we begin with Hardware. There are two kinds of hardware, and they both refer to physical components that make up your computer. The first kind, called external hardware, includes all the pieces you can see without opening up your laptop or phone. Any desktop computer hardware you plug in and work with directly, like a mouse or a screen, is called a Peripheral. On the flip side, internal hardware includes the motherboard, the CPU (Central Processing Unit; kinda like your computer’s brain!), and other pieces that make up the guts of the computer. So, remember, even if your monitor is broken or your spacebar is missing, your internal hardware may still be working just fine.

Now before we talk about software, we have to say hello to our friend who is often invisible. Firmware is a medium serving as an in-between. We have a longer post about Firmware that you can read right here. The gist: as your computer turns on, the firmware is on the frontlines and tells the different pieces of internal and external hardware how to talk with one another. While you’ll rarely see firmware in action, you wouldn’t be able to use any computer without it.

Software is a generic term for any instructions we give to the computer’s hardware, it’s usually written in human words and then translated into computer speak for the computer to read (computers can only think in 0s and 1s - think Morse code). This term is so broad that almost anything you think of as being “on your computer” is probably software. For instance, MacOS and Windows are both software. But so is Outlook or your favorite website! Even the humble File Explorer or the clock in your bottom right corner (or top right, I see you Mac people) are pieces of “software”. Now, a software engineer would want me to write much more in-depth and add a ton more caveats to this definition, but this blog post is already a little long.

That said, I have just one more thing we need to go over. Because software is such a broad term, we sometimes need to narrow it down. One such way is with the word, Application. Applications are a set of instructions (software) that are bundled together to perform a specific task (applying the software!). Most things you use daily are apps, this includes your email or YouTube or your web browser. As we enter November and look toward Thanksgiving, I hope this encourages you to be thankful for all the cool and different parts that have to come together for us to use our computers every day.