Name: Guzman, Ma. Christine C.

Course/Year: BSAIS-3
Contact number: 09752637835

Exercise 7. SOFTWARE IS THE KEY

Part II. Essay. Write your answer in the space provided. Your answer must be based on your
interpretation of what you read in this module. (5 pts. Each)
1. For what purpose is assembly language used today?
Assembly language is a low-level programming language. It equates to machine code but is more
readable. It can be directly translated into machine code, but it uses mnemonics to represent the
instructions to make it easier to understand. Today, assembly language is still used for direct hardware
manipulation, access to specialized processor instructions, or to address critical performance issues.
Typical uses are device drivers, low-level embedded systems, and real-time systems. A programmer can
still gain a lot if he/she can learn to code in assembly language and implement it. These days, assembly
language makes it possible to manipulate hardware directly, address critical issues concerning
performance and also provide access to special instructions for processors.

2. Why is programming such a time-consuming task?

Computer programming is important today because so much of our world is automated. Humans need to
be able to control the interaction between people and machines. Since computers and machines are able
to do things so efficiently and accurately, we use computer programming to harness that computing
power.
Writing code is not time-consuming but developing software in general tends to be slow, yes. That’s
mostly because it involves a lot of actions, like designing, modeling and planning. The amount of work
next to writing code can be huge, especially if the project is large and involves a client who lacks ICT
experience. Of course, anyone can write a program within a day but you have to wonder if that program
will have any value. If you can’t sell it then you’ve worked a day for nothing. You have a program. But
developers do this for a living and if you can’t earn anything, you’re not making a living. And writing
just a bunch of programs is like trying to win at the lottery. Maybe one will be a success but the rest is
wasted.
So, developers tend to do research, to find out what people need. They then start collecting information
about the requirement, needed resources and more. They will have to design various forms or pages with
texts and graphics in a way that people will like. They need to define a data model and consider how
data needs to be stored. Then they have to work out the code and once that is done, everything needs to
be tested and considering all of this then yes, it’s very time-consuming.

3. What was the motivation behind the development of operating systems?

The motivation behind the development of operating systems is the computer could operate
much more quickly than the programmer could load or unload tape or cards, the computer spent a great
deal of time idle. To overcome this expensive idle time, the first rudimentary operating systems were
devised and to provide an environment in which we can execute programs.

4. Why is it so difficult to replace COBOL applications?

COBOL code application is hard to replace because it place value on something that runs
reliably and that they aren't keen to take unnecessary risk with a core process The COBOL standard
defines arithmetic behavior; it's not left to an arbitrary CPU instruction. Performance wasn't always
optimal, but the code ran as expected, without any changes, on a wide variety of platforms. Performance
 was important, but many applications were I/O-bound. Saving a few clock-cycles on in-memory
conversions usually didn't matter.
5. How can the quality of software be evaluated? What standards or measures can you suggest?
If you are talking about quality in terms of correctness and stability after release, then bug defect
rate is the easiest way to measure it. The problem with this metric is that it only works after you've
released it. It's already too late. Even though it's too late, I'm going to suggest this is still the best
measure. You can at least change your development practices to improve it for the next release. That's
what happens with project development. You do what you think is necessary in regards to quality, ship
it, take your lumps, and improve. This is why it's important to have experienced developers and testers.
They've already taken their lumps.Some practices we rely on to address quality:
 Automated integration tests.
 Unit Tests.
 Acceptance tests for every story (we use user stories for requirements)
 Feature Level Tests (testing groups of stories)
 Code reviews (all our code is reviewed using a tool)
 Risk tracking
 Manual testing for each story, immediately after it is implemented.
 Automated performance tests.
 Many of these practices have come about as corrective measures after we learned we could do
better. It's an iterative process. We change every release.