Plural of Software used when referring to countable collections of software.

Originally the result of a common language error frequently made by non-native English speakers, it is now increasingly common in the English speaking world as a whole. Thanks to our non-Anglo brothers and sisters in the trade many of us have now assimilated the term "softwares" & in the 21st century simply refer to "softwares" regardless of any other specifics. In the 20th century we would often use terms like "software products" or "software applications" in a commercial setting in order to indicate a collection of several discrete pieces of software, you can use "softwares" in all such cases.

There is an important distinction between the plural "software" (uncountable) and the plural "softwares" (countable). Softwares (countable) refers to finite collections of software products, applications, drivers, modules, scripts, algorithms, and other discrete pieces of software presented in any format and which may or may not fall under one or more more specific classifications as well. You could be a software developer but you may still refer to your collection of assorted projects as "softwares" rather than using more specific terms like "applications", "drivers", "scripts", etc - or the less specific uncountable "software" in which case it would not communicate whether you worked on one thing or many different things.

I have developed many softwares.

I have twelve trading softwares installed on my computer. I will be a millionaire. Lovely jubbly.

What are the different softwares available for multi peak fitting?

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SOfTwArE

The parts of a computer that can't be kicked, but ironicly deserve it most.

"Fucking Windows is the crappiest piece of software ever created!"

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SOfTwArE

A static description of a dynamic process in the form of a stored program used to solve a problem on a machine.

You are writing software to wash your dishes? what is sofware?

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(a) Something made in India and exported to the world.

(b) Something soon to be made in China and exported to the world.

(c) Like sex. Lots of people do it badly, a few do okay, and a precious few do it really really well.

(d) The difference between a pile of plastic, glass, metal, and silicon, and a computer, okay?

(e) The instructions that tell a computer what to do. Software is typically written by humans, although machine written software is becoming more common (yes, it now reproduces). Humans write software in "languages" like C# and BASIC. A few crusty old guys (and a few maniacal young guys) still write Assembly code but they are on the fringes of a fringe culture so we can ignore them. Anyway, these languages are an intermediary between normal human languages (e.g. French) and machine language that the computer can actually execute. So there's this other software called a compiler that converts the C# into machine language. And if you know enough to know that's not really true, then you really shouldn't be reading this, should you? I could have chosen 'C' but I didn't so shut up.

(f) You can get it from a CD, a DVD, the web, a floppy disk, a jump drive, or from a street vendor in China for $0.50

(g) Jobs in software? See (a) and (b).

(h) Okay, BASIC is not technically a language. But you can still write software in BASIC and it won't necessarily be complete crap. Really.

When you flip the ON switch, the computer doesn't know if it's supposed to start the engine on your Volkswagon or start surfing the web. Then the software boots and it knows what the hell it should do.

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