
4: Computer software
Objectives
After reading this chapter, you should be able to:
• outline the range of tasks performed by computer software and
indicate how it performs these tasks
• identify some major issues confronted by computer software,
including software reliability, declarative versus procedural
lan-
guages, and explain in a simple way the benefits of object-oriented
programming
• use, in an elementary way, a representative range of software,
including software running in an environment such as Windows.
Scenario
Once you get a computer, you have to learn how to carry out tasks
like formatting disks, copying and deleting files, an