Computing platform

Short description: Environment in which a piece of software is executed

A computing platform, digital platform,[1] or software platform is an environment in which software is executed. It may be the hardware or the operating system (OS), a web browser and associated application programming interfaces, or other underlying software, as long as the program code is executed using the services provided by the platform. Computing platforms have different abstraction levels, including a computer architecture, an OS, or runtime libraries.[2] A computing platform is the stage on which computer programs can run.

A platform can be seen both as a constraint on the software development process, in that different platforms provide different functionality and restrictions; and as an assistant to the development process, in that they provide low-level functionality ready-made. For example, an OS may be a platform that abstracts the underlying differences in hardware and provides a generic command for saving files or accessing the network.

## Contents

* 1 Components
* 2 Operating system examples
* 2.1 Desktop, laptop, server
* 2.2 Mobile
* 3 Software examples
* 4 Hardware examples
* 5 See also
* 6 References
* 7 External links

## Components

Platforms may also include:

* Hardware alone, in the case of small embedded systems. Embedded systems can access hardware directly, without an OS; this is referred to as running on "bare metal".
* A browser in the case of web-based software. The browser itself runs on a hardware+OS platform, but this is not relevant to software running within the browser.[3]
* An application, such as a spreadsheet or word processor, which hosts software written in an application-specific scripting language, such as an Excel macro. This can be extended to writing fully-fledged applications with the Microsoft Office suite as a platform.[4]
* Software frameworks that provide ready-made functionality.
* Cloud computing and Platform as a Service. Extending the idea of a software framework, these allow application developers to build software out of components that are hosted not by the developer, but by the provider, with internet communication linking them together.[5] The social networking sites Twitter and Facebook are also considered development platforms.[6][7]
* A virtual machine (VM) such as the Java virtual machine or .NET CLR. Applications are compiled into a format similar to machine code, known as bytecode, which is then executed by the VM.
* A virtualized version of a complete system, including virtualized hardware, OS, software, and storage. These allow, for instance, a typical Windows program to run on what is physically a Mac.

Some architectures have multiple layers, with each layer acting as a platform for the one above it. In general, a component only has to be adapted to the layer immediately beneath it. For instance, a Java program has to be written to use the Java virtual machine (JVM) and associated libraries as a platform but does not have to be adapted to run on the Windows, Linux or Macintosh OS platforms. However, the JVM, the layer beneath the application, does have to be built separately for each OS.[8]

## Operating system examples

Further information: List of operating systems

### Desktop, laptop, server

* AmigaOS, AmigaOS 4
* ChromeOS
* Unix and Unix-like
* Linux
* EulerOS
* FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD
* macOS
* IBM AIX
* HP-UX
* Solaris and illumos
* Tru64 UNIX
* IBM i
* Microsoft Windows
* OpenVMS
* Classic Mac OS \- discontinued in 2002
* OS/2
* QNX
* Midrange computers with their custom operating systems
* Mainframe computers with their custom operating systems
* VM
* z/OS

### Mobile

Android, a popular mobile operating system

* Android
* Bada \- discontinued in 2013
* BlackBerry OS \- discontinued in 2013
* BlackBerry 10 \- discontinued in 2022
* Embedded Linux
* Fire OS
* Firefox OS \- discontinued in 2016
* HarmonyOS on Huawei smartphones models and Huawei MatePad tablets
* iOS
* iPadOS
* kaiOS
* LuneOS
* Newton OS on Newton devices from Apple
* Palm OS \- discontinued in 2009
* Symbian \- discontinued in 2012
* Sailfish OS
* Tizen
* Ubuntu Touch
* WebOS
* Windows Mobile \- discontinued in 2010
* Windows Phone \- discontinued in 2017

## Software examples

* Shockwave
* Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless (BREW)
* Cocoa
* Cocoa Touch
* .NET
* Mono
* .NET Framework
* Silverlight
* Flash
* AIR
* Java
* Java ME
* Java SE
* Java EE
* JavaFX
* JavaFX Mobile
* LiveCode
* Microsoft XNA
* Mozilla Prism, XUL and XULRunner
* Mozilla WebExtensions API is modeled after Google Chrome's API.[9][10][11] Thus Firefox extensions are now largely compatible with their Chrome counterparts.[12]
* Web platform
* Oracle Database
* Qt
* SAP NetWeaver
* Smartface
* Universal Windows Platform
* Windows Runtime
* HMS Core
* Cangjie

## Hardware examples

Further information: Lists of computers

* ARM architecture based devices
* Raspberry Pi or Gumstix full function miniature computers
* ARM servers with Unix-like systems such as Linux or BSD variants
* ChromeBooks from various manufacturers
* IBM PC compatible systems
* IBM System p and IBM Power Systems computers
* IBM z/Architecture mainframes
* CP/M computers based on the S-100 bus, maybe the earliest microcomputer platform
* Video game consoles, any variety (PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo)
* 3DO Interactive Multiplayer, that was licensed to manufacturers
* Apple Pippin, a multimedia player platform for video game console development
* Supercomputer architectures

## See also

* Cross-platform software
* Hardware virtualization
* Third platform
* Platform ecosystem

## References

1. ↑ "What I Talk About When I Talk About Platforms". martinfowler.com. https://martinfowler.com/articles/talk-about-platforms.html.
2. ↑ "platform". Free On-line Dictionary of Computing
3. ↑ Andrew Binstock (July 2, 2012). "Google's Redefinition of the Browser As Platform". http://www.drdobbs.com/web-development/googles-redefinition-of-the-browser-as-p/240003086?itc=edit_stub.
4. ↑ "Microsoft Office as a Platform for Software + Services". http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb906062.aspx.
5. ↑ "What Is PAAS?". http://www.interoute.com/what-paas.
6. ↑ "Twitter Development Platform - Twitter Developers". https://dev.twitter.com/.
7. ↑ "Facebook Development Platform Launches...". August 15, 2006. https://www.facebook.com/notes/2207512130.
8. ↑ "Platform independence in Java's Byte Code". https://stackoverflow.com/questions/17101796/platform-independence-in-javas-byte-code.
9. ↑ "The Future of Developing Firefox Add-ons" (in en-US). https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2015/08/21/the-future-of-developing-firefox-add-ons/.
10. ↑ "Upcoming Changes in Compatibility Features" (in en-US). https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2017/08/10/upcoming-changes-compatibility/.
11. ↑ "How to enable legacy extensions in Firefox 57 - gHacks Tech News". 12 August 2017. https://www.ghacks.net/2017/08/12/how-to-enable-legacy-extensions-in-firefox-57/.
12. ↑ "Porting a Google Chrome extension". Mozilla. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Add-ons/WebExtensions/Porting_a_Google_Chrome_extension.

## External links

| Wikidata has the property:

* NO LABEL (P400) (see uses)

|

* Ryan Sarver: What is a platform?

* v
* t
* e

Computer science

Note: This template roughly follows the 2012 ACM Computing Classification System.

Hardware|

* Printed circuit board
* Peripheral
* Integrated circuit
* Very Large Scale Integration
* Systems on Chip (SoCs)
* Energy consumption (Green computing)
* Electronic design automation
* Hardware acceleration

Computer systems
organization|

* Computer architecture
* Embedded system
* Real-time computing
* Dependability

Networks|

* Network architecture
* Network protocol
* Network components
* Network scheduler
* Network performance evaluation
* Network service

Software organization|

* Interpreter
* Middleware
* Virtual machine
* Operating system
* Software quality

Software notations
and tools|

* Programming paradigm
* Programming language
* Compiler
* Domain-specific language
* Modeling language
* Software framework
* Integrated development environment
* Software configuration management
* Software library
* Software repository

Software development|

* Software development process
* Requirements analysis
* Software design
* Software construction
* Software deployment
* Software maintenance
* Programming team
* Open-source model

Theory of computation|

* Model of computation
* Formal language
* Automata theory
* Computational complexity theory
* Logic
* Semantics

Algorithms|

* Algorithm design
* Analysis of algorithms
* Algorithmic efficiency
* Randomized algorithm
* Computational geometry

Mathematics
of computing|

* Discrete mathematics
* Probability
* Statistics
* Mathematical software
* Information theory
* Mathematical analysis
* Numerical analysis

Information
systems|

* Database management system
* Information storage systems
* Enterprise information system
* Social information systems
* Geographic information system
* Decision support system
* Process control system
* Multimedia information system
* Data mining
* Digital library
* Computing platform
* Digital marketing
* World Wide Web
* Information retrieval

Security|

* Cryptography
* Formal methods
* Security services
* Intrusion detection system
* Hardware security
* Network security
* Information security
* Application security

Human–computer
interaction|

* Interaction design
* Social computing
* Ubiquitous computing
* Visualization
* Accessibility

Concurrency|

* Concurrent computing
* Parallel computing
* Distributed computing
* Multithreading
* Multiprocessing

Artificial
intelligence|

* Natural language processing
* Knowledge representation and reasoning
* Computer vision
* Automated planning and scheduling
* Search methodology
* Control method
* Philosophy of artificial intelligence
* Distributed artificial intelligence

Machine learning|

* Supervised learning
* Unsupervised learning
* Reinforcement learning
* Multi-task learning
* Cross-validation

Graphics|

* Animation
* Rendering
* Image manipulation
* Graphics processing unit
* Mixed reality
* Virtual reality
* Image compression
* Solid modeling

Applied
computing|

* E-commerce
* Enterprise software
* Computational mathematics
* Computational physics
* Computational chemistry
* Computational biology
* Computational social science
* Computational engineering
* Computational healthcare
* Digital art
* Electronic publishing
* Cyberwarfare
* Electronic voting
* Video games
* Word processing
* Operations research
* Educational technology
* Document management

* Book
* Category
* Outline
* WikiProject
* Commons

0.00

(0 votes)

Original source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computing platform. Read more

|

Retrieved from "https://handwiki.org/wiki/index.php?title=Computing_platform&oldid=3431383"
*[v]: View this template
*[t]: Discuss this template
*[e]: Edit this template