Computer Software

Integrated development environment (IDE)

• Most high-level languages now include an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) consisting of a simple word processor, compiler, linker and loader tools for finding errors.
• This software package provides menus from which user can select the next step.
• It leaves all versions of the program in memory. For safety, we need to explicitly save the source file to disk.

Program Execution

• Executing a program requires the CPU to examine each program instruction in memory and send out the command signals required to perform each instruction.
• Although instructions are normally performed consecutively (sequencing), they can be skipped (branching) or repeated (looping) under program control.
• During execution, data can be entered by the operator, or from a saved file.
• After processing, the program output can be displayed or printed as a result.