Computing platform

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In computing, a platform describes some sort of hardware architecture or software framework (including application frameworks), that allows software to run. Typical platforms include a computer's architecture, operating system, programming languages and related runtime libraries or graphical user interface.

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[edit] Hardware, operating system and virtual machine

To read here, some of the many meanings of platform, imagine a completely new Computer hardware. It needs a software platform in order to run applications. Assembly language could be written directly, but usually software developers target the new hardware platform using a cross_compiler. The cross-compiler is itself a new software platform running in the development machine. The established hardware architecture has a superior software development environment because it already contains software frameworks platforms that developers can be productive with such as a GUI platform, a programming language platform, and library platforms for it's operating system platform. Eventually the target gets its own operating system and software platforms and is complete. Still, the development may continue solely with cross-compilation if the developers create a virtual machine of the new hardware platform. Virtualization platforms can be written for the new architecture. Paravirtualization platforms can also target the new machine. These virtual platforms both produce and run applications targeting another hardware platform.

[edit] Role in software

A platform is a crucial element in software development. A platform might be simply defined as 'a place to launch software'. It is an agreement that the platform provider gave to the software developer that logic code will interpret consistently as long as the platform is running on top of other platforms. Logic code includes byte code, source code, and machine code.

[edit] Background

Platforms are frequently mentioned with APIs. A complete suite of APIs constitute another type of platform called software platform. Software Platforms frequently are dependent to operating systems. However, this is not always true. For example, two popular non-OS dependent platforms are Java, as mentioned above, and BREW for mobile phones.

[edit] .NET

Main article: .NET Framework

Microsoft .NET is an umbrella term that applies to a wide collection of products and technologies from Microsoft. Most have in common a dependence on the Microsoft .NET Framework.

[edit] Java

Main article: Java Platform

Java programs are a typical example of the latter point. Java source code is "compiled" to an intermediate-language bytecode which is then interpreted by an interpreter, the JVM, which then interfaces that program with the Java software libraries. In phones, PDAs and other wireless mobile devices, these libraries are the Java ME. Some phones, even without a full fledged OS, enable Java programs such as games to operate. Java and the bytecode are said to be platform independent. But this is because Java is the platform as well as a programming language. Software really cannot operate without a platform or be platform independent. The programming language is referred to here, meaning the programmer need not be concerned about the hardware or operating system platform, nor will the language change with a different platform.

[edit] Operating system platform examples

[edit] Software platform examples

[edit] Hardware examples

[edit] Phone platforms

[edit] Symbian

[edit] Linux

[edit] Run time

[edit] Others

[edit] See also

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