history

HISTORY

The first theory about software was proposed by Alan Turing in his 1935 essayComputable numbers with an application to the Entscheidungsproblem (Decision problem).^[3] The term "software" was first used in print by John W. Tukey in 1958.^[4]Colloquially, the term is often used to mean application software. In computer science andsoftware engineering, software is all information processed by computer system, programs and data.^[4] The academic fields studying software are computer science and software engineering.

The history of computer software is most often traced back to the first software bug in 1946^{[citation needed]}. As more and more programs enter the realm of firmware, and the hardware itself becomes smaller, cheaper and faster as predicted by Moore's law, elements of computing first considered to be software, join the ranks of hardware. Most hardware companies today have more software programmers on the payroll than hardware designers^{[citation needed]}, since software tools have automated many tasks ofPrinted circuit board engineers. Just like the Auto industry, the Software industry has grown from a few visionaries operating out of their garage with prototypes. Steve Jobs andBill Gates were the Henry Ford and Louis Chevrolet of their times^{[citation needed]}, who capitalized on ideas already commonly known before they started in the business. In the case of Software development, this moment is generally agreed to be the publication in the 1980s of the specifications for the IBM Personal Computer published by IBM employeePhilip Don Estridge. Today his move would be seen as a type of crowd-sourcing