Week 6: Clear - Understanding Software

This week I watched lectures and did some reading on Understanding Software. Most of the information was clear and simple, while some of it seemed pretty intense and complicated. Learning and understanding the types of software was pretty easy, I seem to have a better understanding on the differences between System Software and Application Software. System Software, such as, Windows 7 and McAfee Antivirus are needed for the smooth functioning of a computer and it's peripheral devices. Application Software, such as, Microsoft Word and Quickbooks, help accomplish a specific purpose.

Probably the most interesting thing that I learned this week was about Version Numbers of software.
Version Numbers consist of :  Major # . Minor # . revision # . build #
So a version of an application may look like this.
Version: 1.6.4356.41199
This is actually the version of the Bing application that is running on my Blackberry.
Version 1 means that this is the first actual version created for my phone, then the 6 is the minor version number which means it has had 6 minor upgrades to fix bugs and to improve performance, the 4356 is basically how many times it has been tweaked to fix bugs, and the 41199 is how many times the developers have gone in just to check to make sure everything is still ok and secure.

This information was very important to me because when I see a new version of something I have the tenancy to want to upgrade as soon as it is released, but now knowing that the new versions could be full of bugs and such helped me to understand that I should probably wait a while to make sure everything, or most everything, is worked out before jumping in to something especially when there is a large investment involved.

The muddiest part of this week's lesson was about Writing Software, this seems so confusing, that I am turned off by it even though I am very interested in learning more about it, it just seems like too much to grasp! Hopefully it isn't, because I know I am going to have to learn more about it as the semester goes on!

Wish me luck!!

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