The Laws of Software Process

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The Five Knowledge Storage Media

that can be used to approximate any simple polynomial. The “program-

ming” was mechanical, and involved setting values on dials. The “process-

ing” of the program was effected by turning wheels until the program “ter-

mination” event occurred (a dial appeared with the words “calculation

complete”).*

In the broadest sense, any set of instructions given to a machine to con-

trol its operation can be thought of as a “program.” Babbage’s machine

shared some similarities with other programmed mechanical machines of

the time, such as cotton looms, the key difference being that the purpose

of Babbage’s machine was the calculation itself. In a cotton loom, the pro-

gram and the functioning of the machine is entirely secondary ...