CS 1.2.2 Applications Generation

16 flashcards · Computer Science · by TheoTyson

1. What is systems software?

   Low level software that runs the computer's hardware and application programs.

2. What is applications software?

   Software designed to be used by the end user to perform a task, and requires systems software.

3. What are utility software?

   System software designed to optimise the performance of the computer.

4. What is disk fragmentation?

   A program that reorganises a magnetic hard disk so that the files that have been split up can be combined into one location in the disk.

5. What is a virus checker?

   Checks the hard drive for viruses and also emails and internet downloads.

6. What is open source software?

   When the source code is distributed and can be used by anyone without a license. It can be modified by anyone, but there may be less support.

7. What is closed source software?

   The users of the software must hold a license while the creator still holds the copyright, the source code is not accessible, but there is more support and updates.

8. What is an assembler?

   It translates assembly code into 1s and and 0s as machine code that can be understood by the computer.

9. What is source code?

   Untranslated code that can be understood by humans.

10. What is object code?

    Translated machine code that can be understood by the computer.

11. What is assembly code?

    A low level language where each instruction corresponds to one machine code instruction.

12. What is a compiler?

    A program that translates a high level language into machine code. It translates the whole program at once and produces an executable files that can be run whenever.

13. What is an interpreter?

    A program that translates one line at a time, and if it translates, then it is executed, if not, an error is raised.

14. What happens during lexical analysis?

    Whitespace and comments are removed, variables and constants are replaced by tokens and stored in a symbol table.

15. What happens during syntax analysis?

    The tokens are analysed against the rules of the programming language.

16. What happens during semantic analysis?

    Logic mistakes in the program are flagged.