Other than electricity, the other very important aspect in the working of a computer is a program. They are what instruct the computer on what to do. The instructions are run by the processor. This process of sending and executing instructions is called computer programming or also referred to as software programming. Computer programming can be divided into two broad categories; system and application software. The professionals can expound further on the detailed work of these two.
But software cannot work without hardware. Hardware is basically the physical parts of the computer used in running the computer. They include parts like the processor, mouse, monitor, circuit board etc. The making of hardware is important in the development of computer programming. The main reason of this is that the programs of the computer run from the hardware. When the computer starts up the operating system found in the ROM, it literally runs and the computer is said to be booting. The course of booting sets up the initial configuration of all the systems of the computer.
After booting has already taken place, the operating system loads all the necessary settings and configurations. Each and every hardware has its own settings that dictate how it operates. Current systems allow the user to exercise more control over both the hardware and software by using hardware and software development kits. New hardware development kits have come about which can check the validity of software and system designs.
Several programs can run at the same time on one computer, a process referred to as multitasking, running on both the hardware and software concurrently. Modern computers dictate which process will be given priority over the others. This is known as process scheduling. This is achieved by switching between processes. Although the computer deals with one process at a time, it takes such a short time that to the user it seems as if the programs are being processed at the same time.
Open source hardware is a recent innovation which seeks to allow free usage of open source software alongside the hardware. This allows free distribution of information in terms of design, size, among others. Developers are shifting attention to the development of hardware, since that of software seems to have reached its highest point ever. Hardware development tools have been seen to flood the market, and it is expected that the new technology will be developed very soon.