Question

Compare and contrast hardware and software.

Answer 1

Answer:

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE

Hardware

• Hardware is Tangible.
• Hardware cannot be infected by viruses.
• Hardware has monitors, hard drives, USB and etc.
• If hardware gets damaged it can be replaced.
• They are mostly made using electronic materials.

Software

• Software is non-tangible.
• Software can be infected by viruses.
• It consists of applications and system software.
• It is usually developed using a programming language.
• It can be affected by bugs.

Answer 2

Hardware:
-physical parts of a computer that cause processing of data
-can be connected (physically) & can touch
- Hardware wares out during/over time
-Hardware failure is random
Software:
-A set of construction that tells a computer exactly what to do
-software is logical in nature
- dose not have an increasing failure rate

Similarities
- Behavior; Users interact with the products in various ways

- Products produce outputs and given inputs

-they have functional (user facing) and non functional (non user facing) requirements

-They are both complex (any representation of product specifications lead to a main structure)


Differences
- Software is easier to change then hardware

- Software testing is done by specialized quality assurance (QA) engineers, while hardware is done by engineers who are creating the product

-Hardware must be designed and tested to work over a range of time and environmental conditions, which is not the case for software

- Hardware designs are constrained by the need to incorporate standard parts

(Hope this helps?)